I think you're responding to a strawman, because your comments only make sense to me if what we were considering was replacing private insurance with public insurance, and we're not. Single payer only has about 80-something votes in the House. Obama's plan is tailor-made for the "WHOA, not NO" crowd. A public option can be adopted at whatever rate people are comfortable with, and any employers or individuals who want to stick with private insurance can and will. That also means the size of the US isn't an issue either, because we won't get the whole population signing up for it all at once. It'll grow as fast as people want it to grow, as they vote with their feet/wallets. And if it doesn't turn out to be what people want, then it won't grow.
This plan, which started out more or less as John Edwards' proposals, has been floating around in public debate for several years now. The specific bills have been hashed out in Congress for almost half a year, and aren't likely to be passed for a few more months. The issue of reforming health care has been a pressing problem for decades, and extensively debated. I can't fathom what value there might be in slowing it all down even further, except as a subset of "let's just never do it, let's only talk about it forever".
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This plan, which started out more or less as John Edwards' proposals, has been floating around in public debate for several years now. The specific bills have been hashed out in Congress for almost half a year, and aren't likely to be passed for a few more months. The issue of reforming health care has been a pressing problem for decades, and extensively debated. I can't fathom what value there might be in slowing it all down even further, except as a subset of "let's just never do it, let's only talk about it forever".