Krugman: If you don’t like the mandate, why not support single payer?

Bill Gardner at The Incidental Economist offers a rather decorous, mild reply to the people making [the argument that guaranteed health insurance is an assault on America’s freedom]. I’d put it more forcefully: the pre-ACA system drastically restricted many people’s freedom, because given the extreme dysfunctionality of the individual insurance market, they didn’t dare leave jobs (or in some cases marriages) that came with health insurance. Now that affordable insurance is available even if you don’t have a good job at a big company, many Americans will feel liberated — and this hugely outweighs the minor infringement on freedom caused by the requirement that people buy insurance. (Also, if you don’t like the mandate, why not support single payer?)

— Paul Krugman, Insurance and Freedom, NYTimes.com, today

I’ve said now here at AB too many times to count, but most recently five days ago, that the highlighting of Obamacare horror stories–real or fabricated–is really an argument for single payer. Every single horror-story problem–real, fabricated, or predicted down the road–would be cured by single payer.  But, to my knowledge, no one else was writing this in print for public consumption.  Now, Paul Krugman has done that.

But why aren’t the Dems pointing out that what the Repubs appear to actually be complaining about is the absence of a public option, or that the ACA didn’t establish single payer?  Maybe sometime before the election, they will–if others who have a wide readership make the point, as Krugman did there.