Jim Cooper

by Chris Kromm, cross-posted from FacingSouth

Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) used to support a public option for a health care. But now he's become an advocate of the alternative put forward by health interests and his fellow Blue Dogs: non-profit health care cooperatives.

And to make the case, Rep. Cooper says we should look to the model of our country's rural electric co-operatives. As he told MSNBC yesterday:

"A co-op is really used over three-quarters of the land area of America so we buy our electricity that way," said Cooper. "It's a creature of the New Deal. It's worked really pretty well over all the country for 70 or 80 years. It's owned by the customers; it is not owned by the government. It works. It works real well."

But Rep. Cooper hasn't always been so enthusiastic about the rural electric co-op model.