Darcy Burner kicks Obama's ass.

Here's her full post and I'm just gonna take bits and pieces. I just wanted to say that after meeting her at Netroots, she's by far one of the coolest folks I've met in politics and it's good to see her get rewarded with a sweet gig. Anyways:

I keep having the same argument, in which someone says, "The progressives won't really kill healthcare reform, right? Even if they don't get a public option - right?"

And I unfailingly respond, "Actually, they will. And they should."

A no-public-option bill would mandate that every American buy health insurance while ensuring skyrocketing premiums. What sane politician would vote for a bill like that?

Then she sticks it to the blue dogs

S

imply put, if you want other reforms like elimination of pre-existing condition exclusions, you need a public option because:

* Reforms such as eliminating pre-existing condition exclusions only work if you have an individual mandate.
* If you have an individual mandate, rates will skyrocket unless you have a public option to provide competition (or rate controls, which aren't even on the table).

So what opponents of the public option are proposing is that we pass a bill that will spike the cost of health insurance at the same time we require everyone by law to buy it.

Given that as the alternative, we are in fact better off with no reform.

And then her kill shot, hitting at the heart of the matter, points out the flaws and says President Obama has a choice:

So now everybody has to buy insurance. And without a public option, this guarantees that premiums will skyrocket. Why? Right now, insurance companies are held at least a little in check by the option of people deciding that the insurance is just so expensive they're better off with nothing. However, if everyone has to buy insurance (individual mandate), there is nothing to keep the two or fewer companies in each of the markets in most of America to raise their prices as high as they wanted. After all, everyone would still have to buy in.

The public option is the only thing on the table that would provide a meaningful check on insurance companies. It would guarantee a high-quality low-cost alternative would be available that the insurance companies would have to compete with for the business of the American people.

So yes, progressives should kill a bill without the public option. No sane Member of Congress should vote for it.

No sane Member of Congress should vote for a bill that will spike the cost of health insurance at the same time we require all Americans to buy it.

And as for the arguments this would be catastrophically damaging to President Obama? He has a choice. He can chose to succeed with a robust public option, or he can choose to fail.

DAMN!