In recent months, Howard Dean — the former physician, Governor of Vermont, and DNC Chairman — has been passionately advocating for health care reform that contains a public health insurance option. Now, he’s written a book fleshing out his detailed ideas for comprehensive progressive health care reform. And I, along with Wonk Room health care blogger Igor Volsky, are honored to be his co-authors.

The book — which is being released in paperback today — is titled “Howard Dean’s Prescription for Real Health Care Reform.” (If it’s not available in your local bookstore, you can purchase a copy online here.

The book is being released in the midst of a heated policy debate over health care reform. A number of so-called “moderate” Democratic senators — including Max Baucus, Kent Conrad, Joe Lieberman, and others — have indicated they are opposing President Obama’s efforts to include a public plan. Our book is part of an effort to ensure that Congress and the Obama administration do not abandon core principles that the vast majority of the public supports. As we write in the book:

Americans need real healthcare reform, not just insurance reform, and nobody should mistake the two. If we only get reform that requires insurance companies to provide coverage to everyone who applies, charge everyone the same premiums, and end their predatory practices, that would be great insurance reform. But that is not healthcare reform.