A key member of Republican leadership in the Senate declared on Tuesday that a cooperative approach to health insurance was merely a "Trojan horse" for a government-run system.
In a conference call with reporters, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said that while some progressives view the co-op proposal as an unacceptably watered-down alternative to a public insurance option, Republicans think it's still too similar. He indicated that both he and the party would oppose them.
Ezra Klein's post about this reminded me about something I've been gaming out in my head with regards to the much-ballyhooed Wyden-Bennett bill. This bill, featuring an all private insurance "exchange" system and individual mandates, is considered "bipartisan" and is being pushed by everyone from the Dylan Ratigan Unit to Judd Gregg.
There's plenty of evidence indicating that it's yet another GOP bait-and-switch, scorpion-and-toad trick -- that the Republicans would ultimately vote in lockstep against Wyden-Bennett if it ever came to a floor vote. Even the Republican co-sponsors of the bill.
Why wouldn't they? They'd have a set of pre-packaged excuses beginning and ending with: "The Democrats gunked it up with their gunky liberal gunk!" Plus, they get to say, "We tried to pass reform but the Democrats gunked it up!" The corporate press will buy this and repeat it as the second paragraph in their cavalcade of "Obama failed on healthcare" stories.