>My maximalist demand is that everyone in the country get decent health care
>coverage. Single payer is just one method and I don't fetishize means. At
>the moment, it looks like a piss-poor unlikely means to get to the real
>maximalist goals, so why support it.
If the conservative movement had embraced this sort of strategy in the wake of Goldwater's massive loss in 1964, where might they be today?
And...there's nothing stopping one from supporting incremental reforms that promote a maximalist agenda. SEIU could say: "Our goal over the long-term is a universal publicly funded system. In the short term, we support any policies that promise to expand coverage, like the Maryland initiative. But we'll never lose sight of the ultimate goal." Of course they can't say that because they don't believe it.
Doug