Rangel blames Blue Dog Democrats for cost of health care plan

Rangel, the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, is supporting efforts to include a government or public option for consumers to choose from in selecting their health care. Americans are entitled to an alternative, and that's the public option," Rangel said. "I don't think there's anything for the private sector to be afraid of."

But some conservative Democrats and Republicans oppose the plan because they don't want to hurt the private insurance industry.

Rangel argued on Sunday that so-called Blue Dog Democrats have undermined efforts to control the cost of the proposed reform bill, according to Politico.com. The Harlem Democrat complained that Blue Dogs have added measures that will prevent the government insurance plan from competing effectively against private insurers.

"What the Blue Dogs have done is just increase the cost in terms of negotiating," Rangel said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rangel's concerns echo the sentiments of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. "Even as they complain about the plan's cost, the Blue Dogs are making demands that would greatly increase that cost," Krugman wrote in his New York Times column last week.