As, I've written before, yesterday most recently, Democrats on CapitolHill and in the White House are a bunch of feckless, spineless examples of the antithesis of the traditions and principles of their party.

Inthe Rube Goldberg joke they call health care reform, thisadministration, the Democratic leadership in Congress, the Blue Dogsaka Republicans labeling themselves Democrats are deliberatelypreventing the American public from joining the inhabitants of most ofthe rest of industrialized nations that have government administered,single payer, universal health care as a human right.  

These so called Democrats, bought and controlled by thegigantically profitable corporate health care and insurance industry,have decided that this industry must be allowed continue its laissezfaire actions that screw, defraud, and torment regular, strugglingAmericans and, in tens of thousands of cases yearly, cause theirdeaths, so that gazillionaire corporate health care in this country cancontinue to monopolize health care coverage as a privileged commodity.

Elected fake Democrats in Congress, who enjoy the benefits of topquality, government provided, health care paid for by taxpayers, aredenying that kind of coverage to regular Americans, more proof of thevast and growing social and economic inequality in the United States.

I wrote this earlier this month: "... instead of bringing officials fromother industrialized countries that have successful, universal, singlepayer health care like Canada, France, Sweden, Germany, for example, toexplain to the American people, their nations' programs which couldserve as a template for US health care reform, the White House andCongress, whose denizens are covered by quality government providedhealth care benefits, have the hypocrisy and hubris to deliberatelyignore, ridicule, or vilify these countries' programs that haveprovided quality health care coverage for all as a human right fordecades."

Nowit appears Democrats in Congress won't even guarantee that a "publicoption" would be included in the final bill.  Even progressiveDemocrats apparently have sold out.

As Russell Mokhiber reported about a former associate with Physicians for National Health Care who was invited to speak to the Progressive Caucus:

"...he would love to speak before the ProgressiveCaucus to explain why single payer was the only way to control costsand cover everyone.

"And that Obama’s public option was bound to fail.

"Bill Gould [the executivedirector of the Progressive Caucus,] emailed me after reading my testimony and materials Iwas going to present to tell me that they were not acceptable and thatthere could be no comparison between single payer and the public optionwith side by side comparison,” Skala told Single Payer Action. “DarcyBurner executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Foundation] told me that they would construe talking about the publicoption  — even comparing it to single payer — as an attack on themembers of the Progressive Caucus.

“Now, I can’t see how honest discourse about whether or not a publicoption will work — especially when it comes from 16,000 doctors and themajority of nurses — as an attack on anybody who supports it. We see itas telling the truth.”

Now McClatchy Newspapers reports:  "Democratic leaders of the Senate and the House of Representativeswouldn't guarantee Tuesday that the "public option" would be in thefinal version of the legislation. Neither chamber's leaders would ruleout backing alternative co-ops — member-run health care consortiumscomparable to credit unions — instead, an alternative that's popularwith moderates but not with liberals.

"Six Senate Finance Committee members, three from each party, arehoping to complete an agreement on their version of a health careoverhaul by the end of next week. Because theirs is the only high-levelbipartisan effort to craft a bill — which would enhance its chance ofenactment — it's being watched closely, and they're expected torecommend a system of co-ops rather than a full-scale governmentinsurance program.

"Removing the public option would lift a hugepolitical burden from moderate and conservative Democrats, who areskittish about backing a plan that Republicans blast as a major steptoward a big-government takeover of health care." 

As for the "co-operative" system scam, Robert Reich weighs in: "....Kent Conradcame up with this bamboozle. Finance chair Baucus is impressed, andsome Republicans -- even Grassley -- seem interested. Watch yourwallets.

"Nonprofit health-care cooperatives won't have any realbargaining leverage to get lower prices because they'll be too smalland too numerous. Pharma and Insurance know they can roll them. That'swhy the Conrad compromise is getting a good reception from across theaisle, just as Olympia Snowe's "trigger" (whereby no public optionuntil some time down the pike, and only if Pharma and Insurance don'tbring down and extend coverage a tad) is also gaining traction.

And Scarecrow at Firedoglake explains more about the big problems of this cooperative "alternative."

"You’d think we’d never thought of non-profits or the co-op modelbefore, but the nation has some 29,000 different co-ops, most of themlocal and designed to help individual sellers or individual buyersaggregate their market power, pool risks and achieve economies ofscale.

"Moreover, we’ve had co-ops in health care for yearsin several states; they’re just called something else. [Updated: That'sfine, but where's the evidence they've made a significant dent in theunderlying problems in our national health care system?]

"Even if there were a national co-op large enough to compete with theprivate plans, there is no reason to believe that the total systemwould solve the underlying problems of industry concentration,discrimination, private system rationing by price, exclusion ofhigh-cost patients and – critically important -- the perverseincentives of the existing for-profit compensation paradigm, the veryproblem for which the President said, "this is what we have to fix."

Even this Rube Goldberg health care "reform" is dead on arrival,not because it's flawed and ineffective, but because these phonyDemocrats don't want Americans to have affordable, universal healthcare like the people in other industrialized nations have had for along time.

Oh, wait.  The US is no longer a manufacturing, industrialized powerhouse, courtesy of the mythical free markets, and traitorouscorporations shipping American jobs overseas since the Reagan era, buta nation of fast food and financial services.  Therefore, according tothe government of, by, and for the wealthy few, regular Americans don'tqualify for single payer, government provided health care like theelected elites on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

With Democrats like these........