Good morning,

Here's Roger Simon in today's Chicago Sun-Times*:

"To compete with the huge health care industry, you have to be huge yourself or you get steamrolled. That's why a public option would work and a system of smaller health care 'coops' almost certainly would not.

"In general, the health care industry wants health care reform and for a very simple reason: It would mean 47 million new customers, many of them young and healthy.

"But the industry does not want a public option as a part of that reform, because a public option would be large enough to negotiate with private insurers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and doctors for lower costs."

Why is Simon making this point: Exactly for the same reason I wrote my blog yesterday, recommending the President take-up the James-Carville/Huey-Long playbook.

That is, Simon is wondering whether the President has the "guts," (Simon, again), to push for the public option, which, as Simon also points-out, the President knows--and has said--is the way to create competition with the empire otherwise known as the" health-insurance industry."

Mr. President: Take-on the big guys, and share their wealth.

I'm reminded of the words of the British feminst-anarchist, Kate Sharpley:

Labels: Barack Obama, Chicago Sun-Times, healthcare cooperatives, healthcare reform, Huey Long, James Carville, Kate Sharpley, Roger Simon, the public option