Sure, I can. What they want is not what the public (the mainstream, at least) wants, and what the public (mainstream) wants is what counts, not what they (legislators and especially far-left activists) want.

Partial progress toward a complete (takeover) goal is partial progress, not a “compromise,” which has been used from an assumption that what's desired or even necessary is full takeover, which is untrue, has an incorrectly negative connotation, and which incorrectly has been used to denote generosity or begrudging sacrifice on the part of far lefties, which has no legitimate applicability. (At least with the public option, there is some legitimate applicability — it's obvious that some supporters are strongly in favor of it, and want the best deal they can get.)

That is because legislators are more pragmatic than their activist bases. It is true that legislation for single payer system or some similar genuine government take over was never put on the table. It is also true that some of those legislators have attempted to sell this bill to their activist bases as a first step, mainly to keep them from revolting.

However, you can't claim that what they REALLY want is a complete government takeover of healthcare, and then turn around and say that legislation that falls well short of that isn't a compromise. Either the majority of democratic legislators don't actually want the government to completely take over healthcare or it is a compromise. I'm inclined to believe the former.

Actually, no, although many may believe it is. The actual start point is (upward from) zero per cent, not (downward from) 100% public for the many additional people falling under the extended federal scope.

(The “compromise” crowd says the baseline is “Medicare for All” or “single-payer” [sic], which is untrue.)

Putting qualifications and inhibitions on the public option such as limiting its availabilty or making its existence conditional, reliant upon devices such as the commonly discussed “trigger” are compromises.

There is no question that some people pushing this legislation want it to be part of an overall incrementalist strategy. However, regardless of what they want, the current legislation on the table is a far cry from a true federal takeover of healthcare. That is because it is a compromise. In fact, all these people are ever going to get are compromises, because we are NOT an idealogically uniform country. So, it is not useful or realistic to argue against a compromise based on what one side wanted, and didn't get.

as was sought earlier with S-CHIP, is not only expansion but “crowd-out” or “crowding-out,” the substitution of public for private sector health care activity

Little private sector health care was actually crowded out by S-CHIP as the overwhelming majority of children helped by the program had no healthcare. It filled a vacuum that was ignored by the private sector, except as a loss on the balance sheets of hospital ERs.

But it is true, and I can provide more words why. But first,

“We already have plenty of president for the government paying for and managing healthcare: medicare, medicaid, and the VA.”

Yes — Medicare is the main “accomplished fact” and forty-year-old precedent for expanding the federal role to others (and ultimately to universality). I have also listed the other programs you listed as those that Medicare could absorb as part of earlier-stage “reform” (an incrementalist alternative strategy), not to mention that what already is overdue and is notoriously absent in the current effort is reform of these programs so that they have a chance to be sustainable. (Reform is long overdue, and of course it is the last thing Obama and the Dems are ever seriously considering doing. They want to add new entitlements rather than reform the existing programs.0

“I tend to think that slippery slope arguments are not useful or realistic, either.”

The incrementalist argument here is completely sound. It is definitely incrementalism (and indirection, insofar as using the private insurers as surrogates). There is no question about this. What is being done here with the public option is a partial or incrementalist federal takeover, with the obvious goal being universality, federal control and provision of health care for everybody. There's no question about that. The only real question is why this strategy was chosen. The first part is easy to understand: going promptly to Medicare for all would cause the public to recoil, to reject it strongly (especially after ominously increasing encroachment of the federal government into the financial sector and elsewhere, such as the economy with energy policy legislation, this year). The lesser questions that arise then concern how to increase the federal role in health care that moves us toward direct federal control (“payment”) and provision (at least controlling decision-making at the top level) of health care. The strategy chosen, which expands the scope of beneficiaries toward universality, was the “public option” (a “choice” or “alternative” within deliberately rigged bogus “competition”) that involves a comparison between a public “insurance” [sic] plan and private plans as surrogates (the fascistic managed cartel or quasi-public-utility system under regulation that has been standard practice since the New Deal and subsequent evolution of the system). What is being done here, as was sought earlier with S-CHIP, is not only expansion but “crowd-out” or “crowding-out,” the substitution of public for private sector health care activity, with eventual replacement intended — obviously and transparently. It's only a question here and now of how, and how quickly and thoroughly.

The public option is the core of the effort and the essence of it, which is federal takeover. What we're seeing in particular with the ridicluous and pathological obscession with abortion by some on the far left is the risking of ruining the health care effort by these same people, the public option's strongest advocates.

I can't agree with this. We already have plenty of president for the government paying for and managing healthcare: medicare, medicaid, and the VA. I tend to think that slippery slope arguments are not useful or realistic, either. Every step along a slope is furiously debated. Tiny movement in one direction doesn't mean, in any way, that everything will role down the hill. I understand that there are liberal activists who WANT that to happen, who want this to be the first step in getting universal healthcare, just like there are libertarian activists who want the exact opposite. Just because they want it, just because they are working toward it, doesn't mean it will happen.

Just as an aside, I applaud the recommendations regarding breast cancer screening, both as a woman and a scientist. Those recommendations apply to the general public. If someone has a number of risk factors, the screening recommendations are going to be different. If someone is paranoid, they can pay for those extra (unnecessary) mammograms out of their own pocket. There is NO reason that everyone in the insurance pool should be paying for other people's hypochondria.

That's what the public option obviously is. It's the foothold, the toehold, the claw-hold, and much more. (It's the precedent as well as accomplished fact, that sets the incrementalist ratchet in “forward” motion.)

Note that this is also true insofar as the abortion issue is concerned — we're still waiting to see if the extremists will ruin everything else in demanding their unusual as well as stridently-sought satisfaction.

Interestingly, related to this, is something badly neglected (as in AWOL) on this site, even after multiple days: the decision by a panel of generalist experts to revise criteria for preventive screening for women, for breast cancer. The anger and other opposition to the panel and its finding is pertinent as it reveals the widespread entitlement mentality (I want! Gimme! I have a “right” to everything!) as well as providing a stellar example of criticism and future possible denial of care on rational or scientific or (so very pertinent) “appropriateness” grounds. (Cost-benefit analysis subjection, and denial of care on a cost basis, actually has barely entered this controversy.) I've been listening to people politicizing it heavily on both AM radio this morning while on the road, as well as on the Diane Rehm show.

This is particularly newsworthy given the concerns the smarter people (including the Doubters) have about what has been dishonestly misstated as the “death panels” issue related to federal takeover of health care, which is actually a more general as well as deep, broad, and long-standing problem with the Left and a similar risk that the Left is introducing. In addition to the ocean of substance behind concerns already, now with the breast cancer screening “revision controversy” we're learning about this week, the potential for denial of care and politics related to this (including special pleading currently by critics of the revised screening criteria) is particularly pertinent and applicable to the topic of concerns and doubts about a magical federal government takeover solution of all the nation's health care problems, inventing a brand new perfect entitlement, And We All Shall Live Happily Ever After.

I await the threads about this breast cancer screening criteria revision, based on generalist epidemiological grounds (which can be extended to screening for all kinds of diseases, obviously), which are unavoidabily related to Doubts about Government Magic and the obvious future denial of care, in addition to the shattering of delusions about unrestricted, unlimited entitlements — if others can and will think. (Certainly there are multiple issues here meriting serious threads, as opposed to multiple sewage dredgings attacking Palin, or opponents of Democratic misconduct, and so on.)