In case it wasn’t already clear that the “public option” is a trojan horse intended to end private health care, there’s this. The American Prospect’s blog reviews the origin of the public option:
As progressives mourn the likely death of a public insurance option in health care reform, it’s worthwhile to trace the history of exactly where this idea — a compromise itself — came from. The public option was part of a carefully thought out and deliberately funded effort to put all the pieces in place for health reform before the 2008 election — a brilliant experiment, but one that at this particular moment, looks like it might turn out badly. (Which is not the same as saying it was a mistake.)
One key player was Roger Hickey of the Campaign for America’s Future. Hickey took UC Berkley health care expert Jacob Hacker’s idea for “a new public insurance pool modeled after Medicare” and went around to the community of single-payer advocates, making the case that this limited “public option” was the best they could hope for. Ideally, it would someday magically turn into single-payer. And then Hickey went to all the presidential candidates, acknowledging that politically, they couldn’t support single-payer, but that the “public option” would attract a real progressive constituency. . .
The rest is history. Following Edwards’ lead, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton picked up on the public option compromise.
(Via the Corner.)
Also, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) makes it explicit.
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