Centerpiece or Sliver?

President Obama insists that the public option was only a "sliver" of health care reform. The reaction from the left makes you wonder. New York Times columnist, Bob Herbert, seems to think that without a public option, the reform will only make things worse.

Giving consumers the choice of an efficient, nonprofit, government-run insurance plan would have moved us toward real cost control, but that option has gone a-glimmering. The public deserves better. The drug companies, the insurance industry and the rest of the corporate high-rollers have their tentacles all over this so-called reform effort, squeezing it for all it's worth.

Meanwhile, the public — struggling with the worst economic downturn since the 1930s — is looking on with great anxiety and confusion. If the drug companies and the insurance industry are smiling, it can only mean that the public interest is being left behind.

I could quote others but their complaint is always the same - we have to have a public plan or we will not have real health care reform. What is there about a public plan that is so appealing?

The obvious starting point is that the left hates to see anyone make a profit and hates it worse if they are making a profit from human misery. Obama describes it this way:

{...} a system that often works better for the health-insurance companies than it does for them.

But if that was all there was to it then why create a government-owned and controlled competitor? The government just passed sweeping reforms on what banks can and cannot do with credit cards. Why not do the same thing with health coverage? After all, health care reform is being rebranded as insurance reform. Is there more to this?

The right has been afraid that the public plan was a backdoor way of passing single payer. From the reaction on the left, they thought so, too.