I ran into a friend the other day.

Unfortunately, he’s a Democrat.

But he’s an astute political observer.

So, I pulled out my handy HD Flip Video cam and asked him to go on the record about health care reform.

He wouldn’t.

Because he was speaking the truth.

Which means that he would burn his political bridges if he went live and in technicolor to Single Payer Action.

He knows single payer is the only answer.

He knows that 88 House Democrats are co-sponsors of HR 676 – the single payer bill.

And he knows this has no meaning.

Because – with the exception of a handful – they will all vote for Obamacare.

No matter whether it has “robust public option” or not.

This includes even the best of the House Democrats – like Donna Edwards (D-Maryland) and John Conyers (D-Michigan) (Check out my interaction with Conyers on this point.)

If Donna Edwards and the single payer caucus in the House were serious about single payer, they would say to the House leadership – single payer or bust.

Stop Obamacare in its tracks.

And start a national debate about single payer.

But they don’t even believe their own rhetoric about single payer – that it’s not only the best reform – it’s the only reform that will both control costs and cover everyone.

Instead, all they care about is not offending Obama and the corporate Democratic leadership.

My friend said that the vote on the single payer amendment offered by Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is nothing but throwing a bone to the liberal base.

It too will have no meaning.

Even the most liberal of Democrat bloggers – like firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher – now don’t give a damn about single payer.

Hamsher – who has close ties anti-single payer activists like SEIU’s Andy Stern – was on Democracy Now yesterday supporting Senator Charles Schumer’s (D-NY) watered down public plan.

But Schumer’s public option plan is a sham.

“Schumer’s plan would essentially require the government to emulate private insurance plans rather than creating a plan like Medicare,” said Dr. David Himmelstein of Physicians for a National Health Program. “His plan would gut any real chance that the public plan would have lower administrative costs or bring any other significant advantage to the table. In essence, he’s suggesting hobbling a public plan with all of the baggage that private insurers bring to the table. This is a proposal that seeks to assurage the widespread demand for a public plan – without actually threatening private insurers in any significant way.”

Unlike the House Democrats, Himmelstein won’t back down in the face of corporate Democratic pressure.

“Even the most robust public option that coexists with private insurers would fail to achieve universal coverage or cost containment,” Himmelstein said. “A public option was first proposed by Republicans in Congress in the 1960s as a means to block a fully public Medicare program. It was later sneaked into Medicare – where private plans compete with the public one and have steadily undermined Medicare despite supposedly strict regulations. Public option proposals have been tried several times and don’t work to do anything except undermine the drive for a single payer reform that would actually solve the crisis. But single payer is anathema to insurance firms.”

And to Obama and the corporate Democrats.

Time to start from scratch.