Single payer censor Nancy DeParle, via Bloomberg:

President Barack Obama may accept nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives in place of a new government-run plan as long as consumers are guaranteed [how?] more choice and competition in buying insurance, a top aide said.

“We would be interested in that” if those conditions are met, Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Conversations with Judy Woodruff” airing today.

DeParle said she expected Congress to pass health-care legislation on a bipartisan vote “around Thanksgiving.”

Well, I'm re-assured that it's still important that The Crazy Party still has a veto power over the process.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, reinforced that view during his briefing yesterday when asked if Obama would sign a bill that didn’t include a public plan.

“The president is open to a bill that increases choice and competition,” he said.

DeParle distanced herself from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s description of the health-insurance industry as “immoral.”

“That isn’t the way I would probably describe it,” she said. She said the industry has “worked together constructively” with the White House toward a comprehensive health-care overhaul.

DeParle also said the president is spending two to three hours a day on health-care matters, whether speaking in public, consulting with staff or conferring with lawmakers.

“He is very steeped in the details,” she said. “He tells them the things that he wants to see, he wants to make sure that costs are lowered. He wants to get everybody covered.”

Of course, there's only one real way to do that: Medicare for All (with a robust private option, so anybody with the money can feel free to hand over thirty cents of every one of their dollars to the health insurance companies for services rendered).

So, I think it's terrific that Obama's "steeped in the details." Because that makes him personally responsible for taking Medicare for All off the table. We "little single payer advocates" always knew that, but now we really know it. "Progressive" my sweet Aunt Fanny.

NOTE There are times when I think the correct historic avatar for Obama is not Herbert Hoover, but James Buchanan.