Co-ops are Public Option by another name

The following is from www.redstate.com:

"You are going to hear a lot of talk in the coming weeks about co-ops. The Obama administration is signaling that the “public option” may not be needed in the healthcare plan.

They are retreating to “co-ops”. Friends, a cooperative healthcare device is the public option just with a better poll tested name.

Francis noted this morning that “co-ops … will be functionally indistinguishable from a public option because they will similarly benefit from free capital, grabbed from the taxpayers.” In other words, the referee will begin playing the game and, like with the public option, co-ops will kill off private insurance.

The White House says this is to introduce competition into the market. Here’s a big rule in life, though: government cannot compete with private business when government is also writing the rules.

As Francis noted:

These people aren’t proposing to introduce competition at all. They’re proposing to introduce supply. (If Obama, Pelosi and Waxman actually reasoned that too much supply makes prices fall, they can each have a gold star.)

But the market isn’t adding new supply today, because none is needed. Indeed, if it were legal to produce new lower-cost products without some of the features mandated by current laws, the market would produce that supply overnight.

Do not believe that the public option is going away. Do not believe that the Democrats are going to give up on universal healthcare. They are not. They are going to change the language and keep the same goal and plan. It may take them longer, but they will continue pushing forward.

Now we are at the hour of danger. Republicans, wanting to appear reasonable, might cut a deal and go with co-ops. If they do, they are voting for a government take over of healthcare.

Keep the pressure up."

Medicare and Medicaid are for all intensive purposes broke. The federal lending institutions of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are in shambles, even the vaunted "cash for clunkers" program was underfunded and is now becoming detrimental to charity organizations that depend on vehicle donations. In my, Jim Mansell's, humble opinion, i do not believe that many of the regular people who want health care reform want it for nefarious reasons. These are good people who just have either had difficult experiences with health insurance companies or just want everyone taken care of because they have a heart of gold. That is a given. There are a few average citizens of the USA that want something for nothing, free health care, because they think that they wont have to pay for it. This is insanity, because there is never anything that doesnt come with a cost in one way or another. Canada right now is having major issues with its system, and the latest news is that people in Canada want it changed because it is not working the way it should. In France, they have a Universal Health care, but it is supplemented by private insurances, and even with all that, peoples cost per capita arent any less than what we pay. The U.K. has a system that looks sound on the outside, but if you are beyond a certain age, or income level, you do not get cortizone shots for pain because it is just not "cost effective".

Bottom line for me is this. Neither the previous administrations, nor this one, have shown ME any reason why they should be entrusted with such a complex mechanism as the health care of such a large nation as this. To me, it looks like nothing more than putting control in the hands of people who cannot even keep their own states from going into the red ink. As Margaret Thatcher put it quite succinctly, "Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money". It also stifles the desire for quality of service and care, and reduces the incentive for improvement.