Daily Kos’s mcjoan informs us that The Third Way, a group of Congressional centrists, is proposing a "hybrid" health care "reform" plan that guts the public plan option. That news was followed by a letter to President Obama from nine GOP Senators (all GOP Finance Committee members except Snowe) warning the President against the inclusion of a public plan alternative to private plans.

Third Way’s version isn’t new; it’s an extreme version of the "hobble" concept I described here, that pretends to allow a public plan as an alternative to private health insurance, but then deliberately hobbles the public option to ensure that it can’t effectively compete with private plans.

Virtually every sentence of the introduction to the Third Way’s draft tells us their sympathies lie with the major private companies who, heaven forbid, would face "unfair" competition if consumers had a decent public plan to choose instead. Consider this opening paragraph:

Whether health care reform should include a “public plan” is an issue that now threatens to fracture the emerging consensus on health reform. If left unresolved, the debate over a public plan could derail the broader reform agenda while other pressing issues central to reform are put on hold.

So the problem is "the debate over a public plan." It’s not the fact that the current mostly private system has utterly failed Americans.  You’d never know that the twice-too-costly system we have has rationed 46 million out of any coverage while limiting care for the supposedly insured by denying coverage of pre-existing conditions and denying/delaying/underpaying their claims, becoming a major cause of bankruptcy. No, the problem is people insisting on an alternative to this intolerable system. 

And it’s those advocates of reform who are upsetting a near consensus on how to solve the problem without that alternative. On which planet?

"The proponents of a public plan seek the right goals — to broaden access and lower costs," the Third Way continues, conveniently leaving out Obama’s statement that we need to give consumers a choice that will put pressure on private plans to "keep them honest." Instead, we have to protect the private sector and Harry and Louise:

But there is a very real danger that an overly intrusive public plan can ultimately undermine these very goals and destabilize the private-sector coverage that middle-class Americans—i.e., Harry and Louise—depend on and are largely satisfied with.

The Intro then misrepresents "reforms" proposed by the industry by ignoring the fact the industry’s willingness to cover more people comes conditioned on (1) government guaranteeing their markets by imposing individual mandates and subsidizing people who can’t afford the premiums and (2) the absence of any public alternative. But Third Way’s brief for the private sector is only beginning:

But while a heavy hand from government might be destructive, the invisible hand of the market is also not enough. There’s no question that the health insurance market needs reform and that for too many middle-class Americans, health care coverage is too unstable.

To Third Way, "too unstable" means we shouldn’t force the private plans to compete, because they might lose market share. To avoid that "destructive" effect, the market’s "invisible hand" should include a very visible government mandate and subsidies to sustain the industy’s excessive cost and profit structure.

Is it possible for Third Way or the GOP to be any more transparent about it’s shilling for the big insurance/Pharma industry? We don’t need to look too far for the reason. As FEC reports and watchdog groups repeatedly tell us, the Third Way members have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions from the industry they now seek to shield from effective oversight and competition.

You can start with FEC reports for individual members like "honorary Senators" Evan Bayh and Carper, or track contributions from one or another industry corporations and PACs; the story is sickening. These folks have been pumping hospital, insurance companies, health providers, and big Pharma for millions of dollars, and the industry is now demanding its due.

The nine GOP Senators who warned the President about a public option are feeding at the same trough. According to a press release from the Public Campaign Action Fund, which has been poring over the FEC reports:

Washington, D.C. – The nine Republican Senators who sent a letter today to President Barack Obama to express their opposition to a central part his health care plan have benefited greatly from health care and insurance industry donations, a new analysis from Public Campaign Action Fund shows.

The Senators have collectively taken $17.7 million from insurance and health care interests, according to data analyzed at the Center for Responsive Politics website, opensecrets.org. That amounts to nearly $2 million per Senator over their careers.

“Americans want a government that is responsive to our needs, not a Congress that listens to its donors from the insurance and health care industry,” commented David Donnelly, national campaigns director of Public Campaign Action Fund. “These Senators appear to be carrying water for their donors at the expense of advancing health care reform.”

All nine Senators sit on the Senate Finance Committee, which is actively engaged in debating health care reform. The nine signers include Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Pat Roberts (R-KS), John Ensign (R-NV), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and John Cornyn (R-TX). Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) was the committee’s only Republican Senator not to sign. Sen. Snowe has taken $1.1 million from the same interests, less than all but two of the signers.

Update: HuffPo’s Ryan Grim, Third Way authors were once industry advocates, and Third Way responds