As the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare” was being crafted, some Democrats were really pushing for a non-profit “public option” that residents could buy into. That was too radical for many members of Congress, who instead came up with the creation of non-profit co-ops, which were started with the help of $2 billion in federal funding.

ACA helped create 23 such co-ops, but now 10 of them have failed. The largest was Health Republic Insurance of New York (HRINY), which provided policies for 200,000 New York residents, including several at this newspaper. Their coverage cost considerably less than all other options, and now federal and state regulators are shutting them down because of their precarious financial situation.

Critics are quick to argue that the failure of these co-ops shows that Obamacare is not working. The truth is, however, that one program that was developed to help co-ops stay afloat gave the co-ops only about 12% of the funding they were promised, and if they had received the full 100%, there is a good chance the co-ops would have survived.

Further, the failure of the co-ops is not expected to bring an end to Obamacare, and this is in no small measure because Obamacare was always a big, fat gift to the private insurance industry and its investors, who are quite pleased with the results.

Wendell Potter, a health insurance industry whistleblower who worked for the large insurance companies Humana and Cigna, addressed co-ops and private insurance companies on the radio program “Democracy Now” on November 3. He said the co-ops were doomed from the start because ultimately they would not be able to compete with the large, established insurance companies. He testified before a Congressional panel at the time co-ops were being considered, and recalled telling them that if Congress passed legislation without a public option, they might as well call what they ultimately passed the “Health Insurance Profit Protection and Enhancement Act.”

“That’s exactly what has happened,” Potter continued. “Since the ACA went into effect, the for-profit insurance companies have thrived. Their stock prices more than tripled, and in some cases quadrupled, while the co-ops have been starved of funding… And as we know, many of them are closing and leaving a lot of people in the lurch.”

Some lawmakers have called for an investigation into whether there was any wrongdoing in connection with the failure of the co-ops. But any wrongdoing surely lies not with the operation of the co-ops, but instead with the priorities of our elected officials in Washington and our state capitals, who clearly care more about maintaining the financial health of insurance companies than about maintaining the physical health of all of the state’s and country’s residents.

Well, OK, not quite all of the lawmakers fall into that category—a few have seen the light of a single-payer option, often described as Medicare for all. In May of this year, the New York State Assembly passed the New York Health Act on an 89 to 47 vote.

The bill, which is not expected to be passed by the Senate any time soon, would get rid of the private health insurance industry in the state and replace it with a single-payer insurance plan that would cover every resident in the state, as Vermont almost did before that plan was killed, and as residents in Colorado may do at the polls in 2016.

The New York plan has support from a large number of unions, including the New York State Nurses Association. That organization’s president, Judy Sheridan-Gonzalez, said, when the bill was unveiled, “The current system ensures that insurance companies’ interests come first and patients go last. New York Health Act removes profit-motivated incentives to over-treat or under-treat. Thus dollars flow directly to care, saving taxpayers money and allowing us to provide for our patients in a humane and rational manner.”

Locally, the Sullivan County Legislature has passed a resolution supporting the act, which would substantially reduce the county’s budget by eliminating the huge Medicaid bill the county pays the state every year.

The bill would be paid for by a progressive income tax and payroll assessment, and an analysis from a professor at the University of Massachusetts found that, if adopted, the bill would result in a net savings in health care spending of $45 billion by 2019.

Republicans have attacked that analysis as unrealistic, and Assemblyman Andy Goodell told the website Politico New York ,“There is no free lunch; there is no free health care.” Maybe true, but other countries have single-payer plans, and they have better health outcomes for far less money.