Kent Conrad was on MSNBC earlier telling Norah O'Donnell that the reason he came up with the weak, destined-to-fail "co-op" plan is to formulate a compromise that would appeal to Republicans.
This is a horseshit excuse.
The Republicans will vote against anything that's not a multi-billion dollar handout to the private health insurance companies. They'll vote against the co-op and they'll vote against the public option.
So why not go for the public option? Naturally because Kent Conrad has been bought-off. He wants to create an easy-to-kill solution so he can have it both ways: he helped to pass some sort of "healthcare reform" but with a wink and a nod to the health insurance mafia.