What's so objectionable to liberals about the co-ops?

[Cali Coug]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I'll point out that Cali's only stated objection to co-ops is that he believes they will have more administrative costs. Therefore he wishes to prevent membership control (of a co-op) and instead have government control by bureaucrats.

He does like to change the topic when it doesn't suit him.

Obama himself can't even mount a credible argument of why co-ops are inferior to a public plan.

Change the subject? I responded to YOUR post. If you don't like where the conversation is heading, stop driving it in that direction.

And no, administrative costs aren't the only reason not to use a co-op (I don't know why you dismiss it as an irrelevant concern, though- we are talking about literally billions of dollars being gobbled up unnecessarily in administrative fees. I thought you actually cared about wasting money).

Co-ops are extremely expensive to start up (Senator Conrad, the co-op proponent, has suggested start-up costs of between $4 billion and $10 billion (these are just costs to get the thing running, and not the costs of maintaining it). Furthermore, what happens if the co-op starts to crash from lack of funding/underenrollment (limiting purchasing power and the effectiveness of the co-op)/etc? Does the entire co-op go under? Does the government bail it out?

Co-ops in health care don't tend to do well at controlling costs, either. Group Health Cooperative in Washington, for example, has increased its premiums by 12.3% a year since 2000 (hard to sustain; there is a reason there aren't many surviving healthcare co-ops).

You tell me- why are you in favor of co-ops? You are finding yourself increasingly alone on this quest, as Republicans already bailed out on the concept.