Republican Senator: Hey, Maybe We Should Consider Health Care Co-Ops

I’ve been warning for a while now that as Democrats see their plans for government health care go up in smoke they’re going to re-organize and come back with some other type of government plan and call it something else. I’ve also warned that Republicans might be willing to jump on board with something like that so that they can claim victory in having forced Democrats to do do something other than what they originally intended. Even if that “other” is just government health care by a different name.
The health care co-ops as suggested by Senator Kent Conrad seem to be rising to the top as the compromise option of choice. Today Senator Conrad has been all over the Sunday talk shows claiming that he and his fellow liberals don’t have the votes for a “public option” health care plan and that they need to try something else. Namely, his co-ops idea. And unfortunately at least one Republican was open to that idea as a compromise.

WASHINGTON — A Republican senator says a potential administration shift from a government-run health insurance to a privately run cooperative is something that opponents like him should consider.
Alabama’s Richard Shelby is a vocal opponent of the health care overhaul proposed by President Barack Obama. Shelby says he sees insurance co-ops as “a step away from the government take over of the health care system.”
He says “that’s something we should look at.”
Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota has been pushing the co-op system as an alternative to a government-run public option to help cover the nation’s nearly 50 million uninsured. Conrad says it’s an idea that has worked well in other business models.

Republicans shouldn’t be looking at health care co-ops. They should be rejecting co-ops as government heath care. Because they are, in fact, government health care. As I’ve pointed out before, co-ops would be created by the government. They’d be funded by the government. They’d be managed by the government. And you’d buy into them through government health care exchanges.
If that’s not government health care, what is?
What’s more, these government-sponsored co-ops would no doubt have all the same sort of perks and bailouts other government sponsored entities such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get. Competing private insurers would be at a disadvantage, and co-ops would come to dominate the insurance industry in the same way Fannie and Freddie have dominated the housing markets.
We don’t want a “Fannie Mae” for health care. We need to make people more independent.