Looking more and more that way. It’s really sad to be so close to something we need – to have a democratic majority and a president with so much clout – and still bow down to the will of cold-hearted republicans and their corporate buddies.

White House Open to Deal on Public Health Plan

WASHINGTON — It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said Monday.

“The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest,” he said in an interview. “The goal is non-negotiable; the path is” negotiable. [...]

However, insurers, and most Republicans, strongly oppose creation of a government-run insurance option, saying it would ultimately drive them out of business. Most Democrats support a public option.

The president and his aides already have signaled a willingness to consider an alternative to a public plan under which a network of nonprofit cooperatives would compete with for-profit insurance companies. That is the leading idea in the Senate Finance Committee.

A bunch of rich, powerful people are having a tough time deciding what’s worse: Americans without any health care or the possible profit loss of a cut-throat business. Who do you think will lose out here?

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