Reply #1: I am actually more concerned with who is paying for this than

[TayTay]

I am on the public option. There, I said it and I am now an official liberal blog apostate. (Sorry, I will try not to get apostate dust on anyone.)

I am very concerned with efforts by companies like Walmart to weasel out of paying in substantial money to a reform system and my alarm bells are going off like crazy at the thought of Walmart agreeing to a public option. What is in it for them? (Okay, I'm paranoid as hell, but this is Walmart and they never do anything for the public good ever.)

Walmart moves into an area and depresses wages to at or near the poverty level. They run seminars on how their employees can sign up for Medicaid and food stamps and stuff like that. (They also suck municipalities dry for tax money for roads and services and then don't do their part by really paying much into the tax system. Walmart takes money out of the system and contributes a net negative to the bottom line of most municipalities. They are a drain on resources.)

So, why would Walmart agree to a public option? Because they are looking for a concession that says that Walmart will not have to pay into the cost of providing Medicaid services for employees. They don't give a rat's ass about the public option or who is paying for it as long as it's not them.

I wish we were having this debate instead of a debate over the inclusion of the public option. So what if we get a public option that goes bankrupt in a few years. Ask California what it's like to have no money for public health. We could have this option and no corporate money or concessions to fund it. I think it's a toothless debate right now with the wrong emphasis on the wrong things.

Again, yeah, I'm apostate on this. I think it's about the money not the purity of who supports what option the most. I want to know how this is going to be paid for and how much corporate America is going to pay. Is there a GM in the future dumping it's health care obligations on the public? Is the money all going to come from taxpayers or is there a corporate component?