Democrats Behaving Badly - For Good, Not Evil!

It's so rare when Democrats push back and show some sturdiness, that it's worth noting when it happens. First, here's Jello Jay Rockefeller eviscerating the "co-op" idea floated by Kent Conrad:

Ed: It's not going to work. There's really no successful model out there to support the basis of signing on to a co-op. Would you sign on to a co-op or is that unacceptable?

Rockefeller: That's unacceptable and I can almost prove it. We've been in touch with all the folks that oversee, represent all the co-ops in the country on all subjects and they point out that there are probably less than twenty health co-ops in the country. There are only two that really work that well. One in Puget Sound, one in Minnesota, except for those two, they are all unlicensed. All present health co-ops are all unlicensed, they're unregulated. Nobody knows anything about them, nobody has any control over them and nobody has ever said, which is stunning to me, no government organization or private organization has ever done a study to what effect they might have in terms of bringing down the insurance prices.

They are untested, they are unlicensed, they are unregulated, they are unstudied. Why would we even think about putting them in as a control on this massive insurance industry instead of the public option?

Rockefeller actually knows what he's talking about because he's been studying the issue for decades, unlike Conrad, who threw a dart at a board and hit the magical Broderist middle with the co-op brainstorm. Rockefeller does not seem like he'll play along on this bait and switch.

Then there's Anthony Weiner forcing the "no government takeover of health care" Republicans to be as good as their word.

Yesterday, Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY) decided that it was “put-up or shut-up time for the phonies who deride the so-called ‘public option.’” He offered an amendment that would eliminate government-run Medicare:

Not a single member of Congress voted for the amendment, and Republicans were blasting it as a “political farce.” Last night, Weiner went on MSNBC and explained the GOP’s hypocrisy:

WEINER: Well, for some reason, I guess Republicans don’t like publicly funded, publicly administered health plans except for Medicare, and, I guess, except for the Veterans Administration and except for the health care that our military gets from the Department of Defense. The fact of the matter is, what we’ve learned is that government administered health care works pretty darn well. It’s got lower overhead and people like it.

So, when my Republican colleagues pound the drum and pound the podium about how they hate government-run health care, I guess they haven’t looked at what they get.

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Sometimes this spine-stiffening happens for about a week, but I like this week's Democrats.