The Washington Post presents another in a series of op-eds urging liberals to be reasonable about health-care reform. Today they have this from Matt Miller, a former Clinton aide who's now a McKinsey consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and the host of NPR's (aka "Nice Polite Republicans") "Left, Right and Center." He's someone who's made a virtual cottage industry out of Broder-like "centrism":

I respect those in my party who seek the single-payer system into which the public option might eventually evolve. But I don't agree that it's the best answer for the United States. Though single payer has merits, especially in administrative efficiency, it is also likely to freeze in place our fragmented, uncoordinated system of fee-for-service care. It would encourage providers to goose volume (to boost their incomes) rather than improve quality and would offer greater rewards for providers of acute care when we need a fresh focus on chronic disease management. Single payer also asks government to do things I don't think it is competent to do, such as setting prices across a large swath of the health sector in ways that seem certain to create damaging rigidities or resource misallocations (as happens in Medicare).

Finally, if government is the sole payer, provider payments will become even more politicized than they are today. On the eve of beneficial innovations in drug therapies, devices and cost-effective ways to deliver better care, it is ill-advised to make the government's hand too rigid. Private health plans have many flaws, to be sure, but if sensibly regulated they're likely to respond more nimbly to disperse medical innovations.

Liberals should make peace with the notion that a regulated market of competing private health plans can be the vehicle for getting everyone covered. Yes, it means that unlike some other advanced countries, we'll have billions of "health" dollars siphoned off by middlemen and marketers. But if liberals think of it as a jobs program, they'll learn to love it. If everyone's covered and insurer "cherry-picking" is dead, health insurance will come to look more like a regulated utility.

Those on the left still seeking incentive should consider: In 2006, Sen. Ted Kennedy urged Massachusetts Democrats to support Mitt Romney's plan for universal coverage via a competing system of regulated private insurers, paired with an individual mandate and subsidies for low earners. Kennedy knew this would become a model for a bipartisan fix for the country. Now, a Kennedy-approved model is within reach. Liberals, far from resisting it as a setback, should celebrate it as a triumph.

I hardly know where to begin.

Our current system isn't about health care, except as a peripheral matter. It’s about profits, protecting those profits for the very wealthy concentrated at the top of the industry, who pay protection money to selected Congress critters for the privilege of maintaining their lucrative and occasionally criminal enterprises.

So to start a statement with "liberals should..." really rubs me the wrong way. A "regulated" market could be the vehicle for getting everyone covered? Sure, in the land of unicorns and rainbows! As we've seen with Wall Street, the vigor with which a market is regulated changes with the political winds.

Are we to assume an "industry-friendly" administration would still enforce those regulations? I'll just sit right here and hold my breath.

I remember the night I first saw "Sicko," and I said to my friend, "This movie is going to change the whole health care debate." He was skeptical: "You really think so?" I said yes, that what really struck me was that we're the only Westernized country with for-profit health care, and it never even occurred to me that it wasn't like that everywhere. Once people realized that, I said, there were going to be changes.

Now change isn't far off. And I can't wait to see what Michael Moore does with these Wall Street bozos:

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore, who targeted the Bush administration in "Fahrenheit 9/11" and the healthcare industry in "Sicko," is now focusing on the global economic meltdown.

The Oscar-winning director will release his as-yet-untitled documentary across North America on October 2, co-financiers Overture Films and Paramount Vantage said on Thursday.

"The wealthy, at some point, decided they didn't have enough wealth," the statement quoted Moore as saying.

"They wanted more -- a lot more. So they systematically set about to fleece the American people out of their hard-earned money. Now, why would they do this? That is what I seek to discover in this movie."

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My reaction to this news was, so what? So the for-profit health insurance industry, which spends untold millions to lobby Congress every year, announces they will shave future increases in the cost of health care and everyone's jumping for joy. I just don't understand the heavy media play on this, nor the administration's excitement. It just sounds like a desperate ploy to cut off the public plan option. Will the administration drop any real reform plans because of this?

I mean, is there anyone of you who doesn't get that these alleged savings are far too likely to come out of our hides? Call me a cynic, but I'm not jumping on the bandwagon just yet:

Volunteering to "do our part" to tackle runaway health costs, leading groups in the health-care industry have offered to squeeze $2 trillion in savings from projected increases over the next decade, White House officials said yesterday.

The pledge comes amid a debate over how, or whether, to overhaul the nation's health-care system, and Obama administration officials predicted that it will significantly increase momentum for passing such changes this year.

The groups aim to achieve the proposed savings by using new efficiencies to trim the rise in health-care costs by 1.5 percent a year, the officials said. That would carry huge implications for the national economy and the federal budget, both of which are significantly affected by health-care expenses.

New "efficiencies." Hmm. Gee, I wonder exactly who those new efficiencies will affect? For instance, do you suppose they'll be cutting the rate of increases in executive salaries? Of course not! Why do I suspect this means that the claims-denial system is about to kick into even higher gear? Whee!

Representatives from half a dozen health industry trade groups are scheduled to make a formal offer today in a White House meeting with President Obama.

"I don't think there can be a more significant step to help struggling families and the federal budget," a senior administration official said in a conference call with reporters. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the offer remains tentative.

So this morning I wrote a friend who's working in D.C. on health reform, and here's her reply:

Actually, what they are talking about is eliminating administrative costs. Like, you wouldn't need a referral for an MRI. If your doctor says you need it, then you just go get it. We don't need 5 forms and 10 employees to put up barriers there. However, the industry is just trying to cooperate so that they can stop the momentum of the public health insurance plan. The good news is that the WH is saying, "That's nice, but we still want the public health insurance plan, too because the only way that you are going to keep your promise to do this stuff is if there is a government plan that is doing it, and people can choose it over you if screw up."

So, it's always scary when industry has access to power. But another way to look at it is that usually these deals are made behind closed doors, and they are being forced to keep it public because frankly, nobody in DC likes them very much right now. Their access is not as good as it used to be.

That makes sense, and I feel a lot better now.