Here is, from where I sit, the heart of Dionne’s argument on why it is common sense that so-called moderates should support the public option is found right here.

The strangest aspect of the debate over a public option for health coverage is that the centrists who oppose it should love it.

It doesn't involve a government takeover of the health-care system. The idea is that only consumers who want to enroll in a government-run health plan would do so. Anyone who preferred private insurance could get it.

The public option also uses government exactly as advocates of market economics say it should be deployed: not as a controlling entity but as a nudge toward greater competition. Fans of the market rightly oppose monopolies. But in many places, a small number of insurance companies -- sometimes only one -- dominates the market. The public option is a monopoly-buster.

He’s right in noting that the preferred method of folks in the middle – and on the right, too – is for the market over the government. The problem is that he doesn’t recognize the fundamental objection to the government entering the marketplace – namely that it will NEVER compete on an equal basis. After all, not one insurance company has the unlimited financial reserves of the federal government behind it, with the ability to operate at a loss in order to keep rates artificially low. What’s more, the impact of such a government player in the market would be to warp it in favor of the government and against the private sector – ultimately creating a system in which there is only one dominant company in the market – namely the government-backed option. The result will inevitably be the collapse of private insurance companies unable to compete with an entity bound by different rules and a different economic model – in effect meaning that while there will be no takeover today, there will be one tomorrow or the day after.