Brown reloads on health care

Comprehensive health care coverage is now the law and the overheated rhetoric and embers of anger concerning its passage have begun to cool in Washington, but Scott Brown says the fight is not over.

“Instead of reforming the health care system and bending the cost curve down, we are doing the exact opposite. Everywhere I go, people ask me what can be done about this now,’’ Brown writes in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe this morning. “ For starters, we can work in a bipartisan manner to repeal the worst parts of this bill.’’

Brown’s surprise GOP win over Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat held by Ted Kennedy was fueled in part by distrust over plans for an extensive makeover and expansion of America’s health care system. Make me your senator, Brown said on the stump, and I’ll provide the key vote to filibuster the bill to death in the Senate.

Brown never got the chance. Democrats’ use of the reconciliation process in the Senate bypassed a Republican filibuster and Brown was left on the sidelines, with his GOP colleagues.

It was a distasteful introduction to the Senate for its newest member.

“After my election, Washington politicians began an aggressive push to bend the rules and force their unpopular health care bill on an unwilling nation,’’ he writes. “It has been a very ugly process and caused many Americans to lose faith in their elected officials in Washington.’’

In his piece, Brown lists a series of changes he’d support, such as allowing individuals to purchase insurance across state lines, battling fraud and abuse, and reforming medical malpractice rules. All of these proposals have been floated by his GOP colleagues.

Brown also said he’s working on legislation that would allow states to withdraw from the federal health care law, pitching the Bay State as an example of a state that has successfully corralled the problems of expanding health care coverage. And he vowed to continue to work to repeal the tax on medical device manufacturers, many of which call Massachusetts home. The tax threatens to throttle the creation of jobs, a theme Brown wants to make his own.

“This disastrous detour of a health care bill has distracted the attention and energy of Congress for the past year,’’ he writes. “”Now, it is time to listen to the people and focus on their top priority: jobs.’’
GLOBE STAFF