In Slate, Daniel Gross purports to argue that Republican warnings of a government “takeover” of health care are “bogus,” in a piece headlined: “What ‘Government Takeover’? The bogus Republican claim that Obamacare is a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy.”

But then he writes:

We’re already halfway toward socialized medicine, but not because of Obamacare. . . . as the population has aged, and as the government created new health care entitlements, the government has been slowly assuming a higher portion of health care spending in the United States—or “taking it over.” . . . in the 1990s, a period in which Republicans controlled the House for six years, the share of health spending controlled by the government rose by 10 percent. The trend continued in the period from 2000 to 2008, when Republicans controlled the White House and largely controlled Congress.

But a Democratic acceleration of a takeover that proceeded under Republican Congresses is still a takeover. If we go by Gross’s own words, warnings about a “takeover” and about “socialized medicine” are not “bogus” — they are rooted in the agreed-upon facts. And a takeover that amounts to one-sixth of the economy is a more objectionable takeover than one that amounts to one-twelfth of the economy — by my back-of-the-envelope, English-major calculation, roughly twice as objectionable.

So where’s the bogosity?