OK, heads up everyone, the Obama Administration is preparing to play precisely the insurance-company/Chamber-of-Commerce card I have been warning of (here, here and here): 

“The White House is holding intensive talks with Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican, about Ms. Snowe's proposal to use the public plan as a fallback option, aides familiar with the conversations said.

“The overhaul under discussion would include a requirement for most individuals to buy insurance; a federally operated exchange where individuals and small businesses could buy insurance; and tax credits to help people buy plans. Ms. Snowe believes that is enough to create a competitive market that drives down prices.”

Here’s the deal: 

Individual mandate replaces employer mandate, which is the payoff to the insurance industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; Federal Insurance Exchange sets standards, which will drive insurance competitors from the field and create the national insurance cartel; tax credits (I wouldn’t even be surprised if insurance vouchers are floated) to buy off conservative policy wonks; all of which combined are to be used as the bait that a few renegade Republican politicians and organized “conservative/private-sector” interests will use to lure the conservative grass-roots base into accepting a “bipartisan compromise.”

 

Think of it this way.  The Obama Administration is launching its counteroffensive but unlike the Battle of the Buldge where Hitler threw every soldier and piece of heavy armor he had left at the allies, Obama is playing “O Brother Where Art Thou?” and sending temptresses forward in the vanguard to bewitch the opposition.  The defense against the Obama counter-offensive is simple:  Fortify Republicans against yielding to the temptation.  Easier said than done, for sure, but something that must be done by whatever combination of carrots and sticks we have available.

Since Obama designs to play the Sirens in Homer’s Odyssey, we the crew must heed Odysseus’s words to his men and bind Republicans to the mast: 

“You for your part must bind me with galling ropes as I stand upright against the mast-stay, with the rope-ends tied to the mast itself; then I shall stay there immovably.  And if I beg and beseech you to set me free, you must bind me hard with more ropes again.”