diggerop wrote:

When Australia first nationalised medical care in 1975, I was
vehemently opposed to it. Saw it as government interference, creeping
socialism and denying freedom of choice. I held that view for many
years. Gradually, as I saw it get through some teething troubles and
changes, some of which were caused by changes of government it
evolved into a workable system. Both sides of national politics now
support it and have done for about the last 14 years.
[snip]

Interesting post. Much of the world seems to have been able to make
"socialized"¹ medicine work with varying degrees of success, one measure of
that being that the citizens of many nations live longer than Americans
while their governments spend less per capita on health care. But in
America a powerful lobby protects the profits of the health care industry,
that's why Americans pay more and often get less--the administrative
overhead of health insurance companies consumes 20% of what Americans pay
for insurance. I don't know what portion of the current reform legislation
will survive to become law, I suspect just reigning in the worst abuses of
the insurance companies might be all we get. So long as members of Congress
are taking millions in campaign donations from the health care industry I'm
dubious as to how much real reform we'll see.

¹"Socialized" in this context means anything that puts people's health ahead
of the profits of health care corporations.