The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the president will push for the public option in his speech tonight before Congress–though there seems to be massive wiggle room in this comment: "White House officials say the president will detail what he wants in the health-care overhaul, as well as say he is open to better ideas on a government plan if lawmakers have them."…

   But, what caught my eye was this:

Insurers oppose the public option, saying it will lead to excessive government control of health care and could eventually drive them out of business.

   And this is a bad thing? How many people would care about that? ZERO. This is the industry that ranks right up there along with the gun and chemical industries in terms of the toll of sickness and death that it has caused to millions of people. Good riddance.

   I would add that if we were about the get rid of the insurance industry by enacting HR676–a single-payer system–that piece of legislation would allocate several billion dollars to retrain and place the rank-and-file workers in the insurance industry into new jobs.