Latest BS Trick Proposed in Senate to Avoid a Real Public Option in Health Care Reform

Just read it. The corporatist Dems must truly be squirming. They must be oh-so-very afraid they might be forced to pass real health care reform with the requisite public option -- which everyone knows is the only way to bring prices down overall and get the for-profits in line. This co-op idea is the kinkiest and most absurd proposal I've seen. If there are already "health co-ops" doing this, how does including this option equal any kind of substantial change to our tottering, outrageously expensive system?

Just the fact that they're messing around with this faux reform band-aid is enough to make me upchuck. THIS is what they come up with after barring single-payer advocates from the table from day one? THIS, when poll after poll shows the majority of Americans want single-payer? THIS, when it's clear to any unbiased observer that the ONLY chance we have to significant cut costs in a non-single-payer system is via a large and initially subsidized public option?

I'd like to know which "at least three Democrats" Sen. Conrad believes would vote no on a genuine public option. That way we could put them in stocks in the public square and let real Democrats pummel them with garbage and mock them till the cows come home. They deserve it.

The Democratic majorities in Congress and the Democratic President were voted in because they promised REAL health care reform, not a game where the deck chairs are rearranged on the Titanic. If they don't represent the people's interests in the health reform legislation, I think every one of us should vote them out as soon as possible. I mean it. This health care reform effort is at the very heart of the Democratic value system. If they don't demand and support an effective public option, how can they call themselves Democrats?

Calling on Obama and Dem Leaders

Where the hell is Obama in terms of pushing and shoving in the Congress? Does he EVER come to the conclusion that he has to twist some arms and upset the status quo to get what he promised America? Wake up, Mr. President. Wake up members of the House. Wake up members of the Senate. The American people mean business on this one and you'd better not embrace some half-assed plan like co-ops or a trigger in another attempt to fool us. We see behind the curtain. Clearly.

Granted, Obama came out fairly strongly for a public option today at his town hall in Green Bay WI, but isn't it time he lays down the law with recalcitrant Dems in both Houses? Here's what bugs me about Obama's approach:

Although there are a number of different approaches to a public plan being discussed on Capitol Hill as lawmakers in the House and Senate begin serious drafts of legislation, but Mr. Obama did not endorse any of them or offer further specifics of how such a plan would work.

The devil is indeed in the details with a public option. Unfortunately, many of the "compromise" measures in this area amount to pure bunk. A pretty name and wrapping but nothing that will establish a strong competitive mechanism to challenge the private sector. Come on, Mr. President. Time to spell it out in no uncertain terms or you'll go down in history as another Democratic President who failed miserably in trying to bring meaningful reform to our health care system.

Meanwhile, Speaker Nancy Pelosi today "asserted that a public option would indeed be part of any legislation emanating from the House, and said she would be opposed to a co-op proposal offered as a substitute for a public option." Good for her.

Now all we have to do is get a powerful Senator to act like a Dem and say the same thing -- but can you see Harry Reid or Max Baucus rising to the occasion and abandoning their big buck donors?

Start calling. It's now or never.