It looks more and more like the Democrats will spearhead their health care plan without help from Republicans.

Republicans signaled Tuesday that dropping the public option would not garner additional GOP backing. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the second-ranking Senate Republican leader, criticized an alternative idea of creating a private insurance cooperative, calling it a “Trojan horse” that was effectively the same as the public option.

“It doesn’t matter what you call it, they want it to accomplish something Republicans are opposed to,” he said. “There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar bill.”

Kyl’s comments came as other conservative Republicans joined in to bash the co-ops idea. Rep. Tom Price (Ga.) said “a co-op that is simply another name for a public option, or government-run plan, will be rejected by the American people.”

One Democratic strategist involved in coordinating the pro-reform message among many like-minded groups said the Republican response was predictable.

“We were always concerned about leading with our glass jaw,” he said. “We felt we probably shouldn’t make health-care reform be about this because it falls so easily into the socialized medicine, big-government theme.”

Groups pushing for a public plan urged the White House on Tuesday to stick to its guns.

Which makes me happy: the Republicans should oppose what the Democrats have proposed (the various ideas, nebulous plans, and scads of talking points) on principle and will hopefully come back with their own, principles reform option. This would be a good time for the GOP leadership to make sure that they get their people in line and stand opposed to any plan that both won’t fix our health care problems and will likely cost the country billions of dollars that we can hardly afford.

The GOP shouldn’t be in the business of providing cover for the left’s mistakes. And bulling through a health care plan while the country is growing in opposition is a mistake that could well lead to a giant flip in the political make-up of the House and Senate after the mid-term elections. The down side to that is very simply that if they manage to pass the wrong reforms, losing their super-majority at the mid-terms will be too late to save us from the damage that the reform would cause.

The Democratic leadership seems intent on committing political suicide (and their progressive “allies” are standing beneath the ledge yelling for them to jump). Which, from where I stand on the right, would be a bit of fun theater if it didn’t mean they were going to do their best to take our economy down, too. The GOP lost big enough--and, in many ways, deservedly--that they can’t stop the legislation on their own; the rest of us have to hope that the blue dogs stand strong.

Steyn has it right on NRO yesterday:

...Right now, if I want a hip replacement, it’s between me and my doctor; the government does not have a seat at the table. The minute it does, my hip’s needs are subordinate to national hip policy, which in turn is subordinate to macro budgetary considerations.
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I don’t think this is any time for NR to be joining the Frumsters and deploring the halfwit vulgarity of déclassé immoderates like Palin. This is a big-stakes battle: If we cross this bridge, there’s no going back. Being “moderate” is not a good strategy. It risks delivering the nation to the usual reach-across-the-aisle compromise that will get Democrats far enough across the bridge that the Big Government ratchet effect will do the rest.

No time for weak knees, no time for happy compromises; this is a time for principled opposition. The GOP will lose some big battles over the next couple years, but America will be better off by far if we can find some way to win this little war.

PS - Check out what Macomber has to say on the subject (and a few others, too).