One of my favorite political writers, Gene Lyons, says that Obama oughta just trample over bipartisanship and do what has to be done to fix this nation's health care system.
Maybe I'm gullible but I'd like to think that our Chief Exec intends that as a last resort; that what he's doing now is horse-trading and manuevering and trying to achieve the goal in a manner more elegant (and perhaps more effective in the long run) than George W. Bush ramming something on his wish list down Democratic throats. After all, you have polls like this one saying that 76% of Americans want to have that public option made available. That's a staggeringly high number in a country where, we're told, so many people love the health plans they already have. So it's not like the whole nation's going to turn on him if he pushes that through.
Anyway, Lyons makes the point I did, and which I'm sure others said long before I think I thought of it…that opponents of the public option are simultaneously arguing that since it's the government behind it, it couldn't possibly be any good, while at the same time they insist it'll be so successful that it will put private insurers out of business. I thought Free Market Capitalism was based on the premise that consumers will always opt for the best product. Apparently now, we have to be protected from having a choice.