NP: Silversun Pickups, Swoon

This Op-Ed in the Washington Post gets a bit alarmist on how some of the parts of the health care reform bill in the Senate are moving, but they hit on something that's been on my mind lately as I've watched the reaction, particularly from the left:

The 11th-hour "compromise" on health-care reform and the public option supposedly includes an expansion of Medicare to let people ages 55 to 64 buy into the program. This is an idea dating to at least the Clinton administration, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) originally proposed allowing the buy-in as a temporary measure before the new insurance exchanges get underway. However, the last-minute introduction of this idea within the broader context of health reform raises numerous questions -- not least of which is whether this proposal is a far more dramatic step toward a single-payer system than lawmakers on either side realize.

Italics mine. For all the talk of the public option, it has always seemed like a watered-down alternative to the single-payer system that "real" progressives gnash their teeth about having to sacrifice before this debate even started. Medicare, on the other hand, has been talked about as an actual single-payer option that would be a great model for all of health insurance.

So the thing that makes my brain hurt is that some liberals -- and as a progressive rock fan, I have a problem calling them progressives, I'm sorry -- are getting so bent about a proposal that expands the existing single-payer plan because the substitute for that plan is going away. This feels like it could turn into a "be careful what you wish for" scenario where insistence on the public option might force a better reform off the table.

Then again, a lot can still happen between now and the final bill, and I'm trying to keep perspective on what is supposed to be a difficult process actually being difficult. Others tend to eschew such perspective, and while I sometimes thing they can be a nuisance, Howard Dean pointed out the other night that this Senate proposal might have legs, and that the criticism from the left helps keep the Democrats at least somewhat honest, so it's useful. It just seems excessively noisy and dogmatic to me sometimes.