Jed Lewison digs up video from February of Max Baucus inadvertently making the argument against a government mandate by stating that insurers are willing to stop discriminating against Americans who get sick so long as they’re rewarded with 46 million new customers who have no choice but to buy their product:

“You talk to large insurance companies, many large insurance companies’ CEOs are on board. They want to change their business model. They see it coming. The business model will change from the current one where they can discriminate,  to one where there are, you know, 46 more million people getting health insurance, so it’s they pick it up in volume, what they lose in the current model.”

Baucus sees that insurers are supportive of his plan because it will make them richer, but he’s not troubled by that. The plan he’s putting together is an insurance executive’s wet dream: a plan with an individual mandate and without a public option. Baucus says that the plan has been designed as such in order to win bipartisan support. He’s either lying or mentally deficient.

Jed writes:

Only a total moron would believe that this plan — requiring all Americans to buy insurance from private insurers — is more politically palatable than offering a Medicare-style public option (or just letting Americans buy into Medicare).

The silver lining here is that Baucus’s bargaining away of every proposal that would aid reform has riled up the liberal activists and advocacy groups to the point where the White House was forced to take notice and is now preparing to push legislation through without Republicans. (Maybe not?)

Whether or not the administration has in fact grown a pair remains to be seen, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to quiet the left now.