Why Would Anyone Want A Medicare-Based Public Plan?

It is time to address a small, but important, issue in the health insurance reform debate. Many "progressives", including Reps. Lynn Woosley and Anthony Weiner in recent Politico editorials, want, as a subsitute for politically unpalatable single-payer, a public plan based on Medicare. Any impartial analysis shows that this is an awful idea. Even if you support the concept, Medicare, in its current form, has been a cost boondoggle. There is no reason to make the same mistake twice.

So why would any sane person support this proposal. Because Medicare (along with Medicaid) is the only socialized health care currently in this country, and is next to impossible to cut politically. A public plan based upon it would accomplish two things:

1. Prevent Republicans and moderate Democrats from ever removing it if it begins to show that it was a mistake/unnecessary/too costly. Health debates would always have to be fought on the left's terms, just as entitlement reform and health debates in England and Canada are.
2. Put in place the basis for a complete government take-over of one-sixth of the U.S. economy through a single-payer system, as soon as a bad conservative (see: GWB) gets elected, leading to a liberal follow-up willing to put such a plan in place.