What Social Security teaches us about health-care

Ezra Klein, who like the president thinks the public option is a "good idea" but does not insist one is integral to health-care reform, says it's "the most important argument you'll read today".

Go read it.

What's interesting to me is he doesn't acknowledge that the same incrementalism / slippery-slope argument suggests the public option is a trojan horse for a more complete government takeover of the insurance industry--i.e. a Canadian-like single-payer or Medicare-for-all, which Ezra and the president also support (but acknowledge as still being politically infeasible).

After all, in Ezra's calculus private insurance "doesn't provide anything of obvious value" that couldn't be provided by Medicare.

So should we be concerned about incrementalism, or not?  If your name is Ezra Klein, the answer is "it depends".

Left-progressives would be wise to acknowledge that their public option litmus test could just be enacted at a later date, he tells us.

But centrists and conservatives who fear that a public option's passage presages a more complete future government takeover of the insurance industry?   Ha ha ha ha, that's crazy talk!