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Today in Tampa, Sen. John McCain, as conservatives often do, tried to claim the "choice" mantle when describing his "health" care plan:

You simply choose the insurance provider that suits you best ... The health plan you choose would be as good as any that an employer could choose for you.

That's no solace.

Because health insurance plans have become more and more expensive, employers are increasingly shifting costs onto workers or dropping health benefits altogether.

And McCain's plan, as our own Roger Hickey explains, is perversely designed to make health insurance more expensive.

Conservatives throw around the "choice" label to make it sound like their approaches are empowering individuals and anything involving our government doesn't.

But if good choices aren't available, having choice doesn't do anyone much good.

And we have the choice in a democracy to have our government take action.

We can choose to have a system that offers public and private insurance plans which compete on a level playing field. We can choose to have a system where no plan can deny people health coverage.

We can choose a system that guarantees everyone has good choices between affordable plans with quality coverage.

Of course, we can also choose a system that leaves us with no good choices at all. That's what we were presented with today.

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