"
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (
D-W.Va.) has been a passionate, and often blunt, voice for health-care reform for nearly four decades, starting when,
as a young Vista volunteer, he took children to the dentist in the rural hills of Appalachia. A scion of American wealth and royalty, having grown up in New York and attending Harvard, Rockefeller said he went to West Virginia in search of his place in the world and never left the state.
He is not known as a Senate show horse, but in recent months Rockefeller has staked out the left flank on health-care reform, and he has emotionally made the case
on behalf of his coal mining state, among the poorest in the nation. He says he sees
no alternative to offering a government-sponsored insurance plan, or
public option, to ensure that private companies don't have a pricey monopoly.
He has promised a floor fight on the matter if one is required."
