While more than 30 million Americans were fixated on Michael Jackson's funeral last week, little media attention was given to the first look lawmakers had at the details of health-care reform legislation.

Before reading it, many Republicans have managed to frighten the public into thinking that reform will mean rationed care. Political commentator Juan Williams called out Conservative Bill Kristol on "Fox News Sunday" for using scare tactics to deter public interest in a government option plan. Kristol warned viewers that the US would end up like Canada and Great Britain with surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, seen as elective by government bureaucrats.

It's odd to see Conservatives - champions of competition - come out against a government option. If you believe the Conservative elites, there's nothing to fear because government can't do anything right anyway.

But even Democrats are wobbling on health-care reform. The single-payer option was never seriously considered.

The bill, America's Affordable Health Choices Act, HR 3200, came out of committee yesterday in its first draft.

Representative Eric Massa, in a telephone interview this morning, said the bill is not socialism and it's not Canada-care, either.

The bill achieves certain goals: everyone gets coverage, costs come down, no exclusions for pre-existing conditions, and insurance companies lose some control.

Massa refuted the scare messages; the $1 trillion price tag is a big number, but we are paying that already and getting less coverage than we need, he said. The goal is to redirect that money.

What Massa doesn't like is the proposed tax on people making more than $280,000 a year. New York would be disproportionately hit, he said, compared to other states with fewer workers and small business people earning that much.

But reform comes down to an argument about core beliefs.

Some in power see the economic downturn as an opportunity to correct some of the social imbalances of past administrations; inequities that are most evident in the country's urban poor, but have begun to undermine the middle class, too.

Then there are those who say government's main obligation is to have a strong military. They see the current economic downturn as an opportunity to weaken entitlement programs, not to expand them.

Health care, like education, is a commodity - not a right, they argue.

This is America's real choice.