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I was listening to National Public Radio's morning "news" Monday on the way to work, during which the newsperson read the apparently "factual" statement that the United States is the only developed country that does not provide "comprehensive" health care coverage.

Perhaps only those of us who are highly trained ideological vigilantes would leap to attention on the use of the word comprehensive. To most people, the word comprehensive sounds good. Of course, those who opposed "comprehensive immigration reform" a few seasons ago might have started twitching on hearing the word applied to health care reform.

Comprehensive, as the dictionary defines it, means "including all or everything." It is very similar in meaning to the definition of total, which the dictionary defines as "complete, thorough." If something includes everything, it is complete.

Of course, it is not surprising that NPR uses the White House talking-point word "comprehensive" rather than its synonym "total," because total health care coverage easily might sound like totalitarian health care coverage. And by the way, the dictionary defines totalitarian as "having and exercising complete political power and control." Note that pesky word complete -- a synonym for comprehensive -- in the definition of totalitarian.

And of course, the word "reform" (as in the phrase "comprehensive health care reform"), which is defined as "to improve by alteration, correction of error or removal of defects; put in better form" is itself subjective and assumes several facts not in evidence -- most pointedly that a reform will "improve" or "correct" an "error" or "defect."

The foregoing is not intended as merely overdrawn semantics. Words convey concepts, which shape public thoughts, which lead to public support for legislation, which may change the way we live our lives -- and meet our deaths.

So to provide comprehensive health care reform suggests that defects and errors in our current limited health care system would be improved and corrected with complete health care services for all. What could be wrong with having new, improved and complete stuff for all? After all, for generations we have heard on television similar words: "Improved Tiger Flakes provide complete calcium and vitamin needs for your children's health."

But sometimes, partially hidden meanings in persuasive-sounding words may be unwelcome truths that advocates don't want the public to think about.

Because, when you think about it, it also could be said of America that we do not have a "comprehensive food-provision system" or a "comprehensive clothing-provision system" or a "comprehensive housing system" or a "comprehensive economic-planning system" or a "comprehensive job-providing system."

In fact, of course, those comprehensive systems are only available in countries that comprehensively control human lives and actions. How else can the government assure "complete" things if it doesn't control things "completely" -- or "totally"?

We have seen many examples in this sad world of what the citizens get when their governments provide comprehensive or total goods and services. Freedom of action -- or inaction -- is possessed "comprehensively" by the government, while whatever the government gives the public "comprehends" the total that the public gets of a good or service. As between two parties, something comprehensively possessed by one is, by definition, completely not possessed by the other.

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