"Perhaps the clearest sign yet of the unpredictable nature ofò€¦ an ambitious [health care] policy overhaul is the approach that is suddenly starting to emerge on Capitol Hill as an alternative to a public plan - non-profit, consumer run health insurance cooperatives," Time reports. "Despite no public debate on the issue and scant knowledge about how health cooperatives could be set up - not to mention what they would cost, how many people they could insure and, most importantly, how they could bring down the overall cost of health care - the Senate finance committee appears to have tentatively signed on to the concept; a 10-page outline of a plan drafted by the powerful panel included a proposal for such cooperatives - a little understood concept proposed by" Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. Conrad "has admitted he came up with the idea after giving up hope that bi-partisan legislation was possible if a public health insurance plan was included" (Pickert, 6/22).