In a slew of press releases over the summer, Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel has made it clear that he has no intention of maintaining the status quo in terms of health care reform.

Engel, who is a senior member on the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, has been very outspoken, demanding that the President and Congress act immediately on legislation that would make health insurance available to those he says who have “no choices and provide competition to bring down the rates for everyone else.”

“For there to be effective reform to our broken healthcare system, there must be a robust public option,” Engel said. “This is the best way, short of a single-payer system, to hold costs and keep insurance companies in check.”

Although Engel was an early advocate of a single-payer plan, and maintains his support for such a policy, an early count in the House reveals that such a plan would not pass.  The Congressman now says he would accept a public option, “at a bare minimum.”

While addressing seniors in Riverdale and at a tele-town hall meeting (he spoke with hundreds of constituents in a conference call) last month, Engel defended a strong public option plan, and took questions to try and get constituents on board.

“I was pleased to be able to explain some of the components of the legislation, and to dispel some of the myths regarding lost coverage, illegal immigrants and the so-called, ‘death panels,’” he said.

In a press release from last week, the Congressman was very critical of the Senate’s health reform bill.

“I would have preferred the Senate Finance Committee to have introduced a bill having sharper teeth in it than the one Senator Max Baucus presented today.”

Engel called the legislation “watered-down” and a “‘bipartisan’ bill without actually having bipartisan support.”  He also expressed his belief that the bill could especially hurt the people of New York because of its high cost of living.

Engel claims there are 91,000 uninsured individuals in his congressional district which includes the northwest Bronx, as well as Westchester and Rockland counties.