Inky piece on health care today

In a front-page piece today:

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that government insurance was "not the essential element" of an overhaul, and that a Senate proposal to create nonprofit cooperatives could be an alternative way of creating new competition for insurance companies to drive down costs.

Erm, sorry, but no.

From a piece in FireDogLake:

1. "The cooperatives' potential to reduce overall premiums is limited because (1) they lack sufficient leverage as a result of their limited market share; (2) the cooperatives have not been able to produce administrative cost savings for insurers; or (3) their state laws and regulations already restrict to differing degrees the amount insurers can vary the premiums charged different groups purchasing the same health plan."
2. "There's a lot of GOP leadership in that above list [that oppose co-ops], but even more importantly, two out of the three Republican Senators negotiating themselves oppose co-ops. Senator Grassley is opposed and Senator Enzi is really opposed. "

Not only are co-ops a complete non-answer, neither Republicans nor conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats will use them as a basis for negotiations.