NO COMPROMISE - AT 7:24 P.M. ET:  Nancy Pelosi seems endlessly determined to be part of the problem, not the solution.  While saner voices are hinting that the public option in health-care "reform" is on its way to the morgue, Nancy shouts, "I feel a pulse, a pulse!"  From the Washington Examiner:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she will forge ahead with a health insurance bill that includes a robust government-run insurance plan, despite signals from Senate negotiators that they may exclude a government plan from legislation it is drafting.

"There is strong support in the House for a public option," Pelosi said on Monday, referring back to a statement President Barack Obama made in March in which he declared a public option will "give consumers more choices" and "keep the private sector honest."

Pelosi pointed out that a public option is the main component of all three versions of health reform legislation that are circulating in the House as well as the committee-passed Democratic version in the Senate.

But neither the House nor the Senate has been able to come up with enough support to pass the public option plan, and attention is now turning to a Senate bipartisan plan that would eschew a public option in favor of an insurance co-operative. Even the White House has signaled it will consider a co-op instead of a public plan.

COMMENT:  The public option is a favorite of the Democratic Party's left wing, whose members believe that European health plans are as good as European museums.  ("I loved the Prado during my junior year in Spain, dearie.")  Problem is, objects that hang in museums don't need heart surgery.

As the story says, the public option doesn't have majority support in Congress. So what is the fight about?  It's to show the folks back in the gated communes that their representatives in Washington have also read Marx.  Very important to show that.  Can't live without it.

August 17, 2009