Now, why is Obama-Care bad again?

As regards the public option, the quote "All the competence of FEMA, all the compassion of the IRS" springs to mind.

Obama himself points out "UPS and FedEx are doing just fine. It's the Post Office that's always having problems."

I'm not confident that the government can do much beyond screwing things up even worse than they already are, and the co-ops are but a "stealth" public option plan.

As has been suggested elsewhere, allowing the purchase of health care insurance (thus driving competition) across state lines in conjunction with state level regulation seems the best bet, at this point.

And less likely to encourage the rising number of doctors (and health care organizations) to refuse all but direct payment - i.e., they refuse (due to slow-pays, under-pays, and administrative overhead) to accept insurance OR medicare OR medicaid, opting for a strict cash on the barrelhead approach.

This is not a bad thing, as when working with such a doctor I got more face time and a better quality of care than I have in some insurance driven practices, but it does create an economic barrier to medical care for many individuals.

Finally, if such an option (refusing all but direct payment) is barred, many doctors may simply shut their practices and retire (vastly reducing their expenses)...and not necessarily the desired result.