Sen. Max Baucus’ health-care bill got the cold shoulder from Republicans, but the Montana Democrat isn’t making any friends on the (true) left of the political spectrum either.

“The people of the United States deserve a lot better than this,” Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) says of the Baucus plan. “Unless you have a public option there is no way that you can drive down the cost for health care because the insurance companies won’t have any competition.”

We can have it all, according to Kucinich: Universal health care without higher taxes or soaring deficits. How? By taking the profits away from the insurance industry and using them to pay for health care.

“If we take that money” — $800 billion a year by Kucinich’s reckoning – “and put it into care we cover everyone,” he says. “So of course we can afford it. When people know a plan exists where there’s no more premium, co-pays and deductibles, where everyone is covered and where no one has to go broke…I think people will listen.”

You may say Kucinich is a dreamer, but he’s a political realist too and understands the current environment doesn’t support his vision. Still, he’s disappointed with President Obama for supporting what Kucinich calls a “minimalist” approach to health-care reform.

Go here for video of Kucinich interview: http://tinyurl.com/qrko86