Good lord, too many cooks and all that. Ring a bell?

Could the Democrats just tow the damn line already? Robust public option or bust. I don't care how much you want to look into this idea or that- the public option is the BEST option at cutting costs, providing competition, bar none (besides say single-payer). A co-op will never fill that bill as well as the public option. So why waste our time?

The answer optics: The Dems are still scared shitless of rightwing reaction to a gov't run program. Sad and pathetic they won't even try to talk about how gov't CAN work.

Krugman is correct. "(S)ooner or later Democrats have to take a stand against Reaganism — against the presumption that if the government does it, it’s bad."

Instead, we get more weakness and watered down BS from Harry Reid.

Thanks Chicken Harry, you just sucked the oxygen out of the room and crashed our momentum.

Reid is spot on.

Obama himself gave him an invitation to say this, when he described a coop as a good idea and warned the left-wing fanatics that this not a competition to simply force the public option at any cost.

Awesome. This is real news on the public option issue, in the form of a deliberate answer from the Majority Leader.

I now await Sen. Sherrod Brown taking the airwaves to explain, with a lot more coherence, how co-ops do not in fact satisfy the goals the president laid out.

One thing I wonder about is whether Reid has set up a construct in his own mind, believing that a triggered public option, set up on a state-by-state basis, is now synonymous with a regional co-op. Hence the "structured right" comment.

It does sound on the whole like genuine senatorial compromise gibberish, so maybe it will pass!

He can say whatever he damn well wants and it means exactly zero. He's living in the past. Its obvious to everyone after last night there isn't going to be reform without a public option in the final bill. Progressives will hold the line at all costs now.

The Senate Democrats need to get that through their heads.

MAKE those Democratic Senators that are against a PO vote 'NO' on cloture with a PO in the bill. With the wide support it now holds in the mind of the majority of the public (since the President's explanation of what it is and is not last night) the only reason they could possibly vote 'NO' now is that they are bitches of the health insurance industry (which we all already know).

Just expose them for what they are. If they have the balls to vote that way. My guess is they don't. Put enough pressure on them, and they'll cave.

And if they vote 'NO' anyway, at least the air we're breathing will be a little cleaner after we've tourched their asses through reconciliation.

A national co-op for all, called "Medicare for All'" a single payer system! Good. Harry Reid is the best example as yet of Lyndon Johnson's thought of an athlete playing without a helmet (Ford). In Reid's case boxing without gloves. Could we please get rid of this whimp. The times call for strength, not ..."well,....maybe." The older I get the better total nationalization of the whole health care industry. My combination of DOD and Medicare is close and about perfect! Let the whole country enjoy it.

The Co-op seems to be as one pundit put it the solution to a political problem rather than the solution to our health-care crisis. It is an issue if Harry Reid cannot whip his caucus into shape and instead must drop important legislation to pick up a couple conservative Democrats, because we know no Republican, with exception of Snowe will vote for this regardless of if it includes Tort reform.

Part of me would not mind seeing a liberal revolution in the Senate or House; however, I realize the likely political consequences of that. The alternative of course is to give the Rep. Wilson's of the Congress a victory in favor of getting most of what we want into the final piece of legislation.

If after the President has twisted the arms of conservative Democrats, and acted more like LBJ, he still does not have the votes I would be in favor then of dropping the public option because we are too close to go back now. However, those Democrats that would have voted no should be challenged and replaced, and would do us all a favor if they just took off the sheep's uniform already. I don't think that moment has come yet, and still the Majority Leader of the Senate is already offering concessions. Nice work, Reid!

Is it me or does ANY damn Dem who speaks about a PO have to clear up their statement later on.

Co-ops are made up of private insurance companies. That is the whole problem and misses the point that only a separate public option can provide a competing component. If you have a Chevron, BP and Shell gas station at an intersection on three corners, adding a Chevron/BP/Shell co-op on the fourth corner does not provide competition. On the other hand, if the government opens a station and sets their own prices, you have competition. It is not a difficult concept. Those that oppose this idea, do so because they have a self interest aggenda, not because they disagree with the premise, regardless of what they say.