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OpEdNews Op Eds    H2'ed 8/17/09

Failure is Better Option than Non-Profit Co-ops

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Media outlets are awash in news today that the Obama administration has given up; thrown in the towel; the special interests have won; disgusting sellouts like Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Kent Conrad (D-ND) have destroyed our country's hopes of ever achieving fiscal and economic stability in the realm of health care spending.

The news of course is that President Obama is willing to drop the public plan option. Failure would be a better option than spending $1 trillion to enact meaningless non-profit co-ops.

And we will destroy the public's taste for this idea in this crafty way: We will paint this idea as Big Government trying to start up businesses with taxpayer money all around the country. We will make liberals oppose it as too little and we will piss off "conservatives" because it sounds like Big Government getting involved in business. And we will connect it to Kent Conrad, the sellout Dems and Republicans.

The move to push non-profit co-ops, hopelessly destined for failure, will backfire: for Democrats, for Obama and for every politician who supports the idea.

Failure would be a better option. Push the aggressive reform. Destroy the political careers of every politician that stands in the way: Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, the Blue Dogs, the entire Republican delegation. Blame failure on these individuals and let the Democrats run on health care reform in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Let special-interest politicians block it every time until we have 80 Democrats in the Senate and 340 in the House and we finally pass meaningful health care. Hell, then maybe we could pass single payer. The fact that single payer isn't on the table is concession enough.

The media can manipulate reality and claim, as Sheryl Gay Stolberg from the New York Times did again today, that there is "increasing skepticism" about President Obama's plans to reform health care. Or, as written by Philip Elliott for the AP on Sunday, "mounting opposition." It might work in their insulated world.

But in reality, Americans are disgusted watching what is happening in Washington right now. They know damn well that we are witnessing the absolute failure of our government to withstand what has been a very haphazard and sloppy lobbying campaign from the health industry. They have been lazy this year.

The media ought to be skewered for not running another poll around the public plan option and creating a false reality of "heightened discomfort" or "snowballing anxiety" or whatever the hell line they chose to make it seem like Americans are being won over by a bunch of nut bags. They haven't run another poll since the last one found that 76 percent of Americans support the public plan option!!! RUN ANOTHER POLL! Instead, they have manipulated polls that show support for reform to argue that support is "eroding."

"Conservative Democrats" and Republicans ought to be ashamed of themselves. There will be a backlash unlike any that this administration has ever seen if they concede the public plan.

Not a single Progressive (read: uncorrupted) politician should vote for a health care bill that does not contain the public plan. Do not pass a compromise and kill the issue that could pave the way to a Democratic take-over of the country!

If health care with a co-op instead of a public plan passes this year it should be only because every Republican plus Max Baucus, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and the Blue Dogs vote for it. Not a single progressive Democrat ought to support a gutted health care bill.

Then...we campaign these traitors out of office next year on the grounds that there is still a Republican majority in both chambers of Congress. There is still a rot in Congress that is destroying our country.

This IS about fiscal conservatism. The AP article from yesterday paints dropping the public plan as a olive branch to fiscal conservatives. DO NOT let this lie persist. Republicans and "Conservative Democrats" couldn't threaten our country with more financial risk and hardship if they supported a spending program with as much idiocy and five times the cost of Star Wars.

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Dean Powers lives in Castleton, VT. He has apprenticed at several newspapers including The Nation. He currently writes for OpEdNews. He can be found at facebook.com/deanppowers.

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