In his essay, “Senator Conrad Says He’ll Vote Against the Public Option” Slinkerwink at Firedoglake notes . . .
In a town hall meeting with his constituents, Senator Kent Conrad, D-N.D. pushed his co-operative plan, and said that he would vote against the public option in any Senate health care package. Conrad presented his cooperative health care proposal Thursday and said he would not vote for a government-run health care program. The proposal has received bipartisan support for several reasons, he said. The cooperative would offer a non-profit insurance option to compete with private health care. It would not be government run, he said.
In response to Conrad’s dog and pony show “co-op plan”, Slinkerwink notes that . . .
Conrad’s been pushing the co-operative line ever since the debate over health care reform heated up earlier this spring, and he’s a part of the Senate Finance Committee that is keeping the rest of the Senate Democrats out of their caucus talks. And he knows full well that his co-op plan wouldn’t help the majority of his constituents. In what’s been leaked about the Senate Finance bill, the co-operative plan actually is a series of regional co-operatives, which wouldn’t do anything to lower health premium costs for American families.