Reply #3: Exactly, and this recent post goes along with that...

[babylonsister]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6699217

Government programs that are successful tend to grow and are hard to get rid of

Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Head Start, AmeriCorps, SCHIP, the list goes on. All these programs started out as programs with a limited reach. They had their skeptics and opponents. People who said they would fail, but they were proven wrong. Instead, such programs endured for decades, and survived opponents' efforts to swing the budget ax at them. They were popular programs and more Americans wanted in. These programs grew, and legislators opened the doors for more and more Americans to participate (sometimes with Republican support too).

So think about this when we start hashing out a public option in Congress. It will likely be a more limited PO than any of us want. That's unfortunate, but I will predict right here that if it is administered well, it will grow and more Americans will be made eligible to participate.