Everyone agrees that the private sector is more efficient in anything it does than the government, right?

Nope. Neither theoretically nor practically does that hold up.

As we see in Canada and England, it’s a fine system, until you get really sick. At that point, there’s a pretty good chance you are going to die before they get around to fixing you.

Except that that isn’t true. Yes, there are cases which make the headlines, but they do so because they are the exception rather than the rule; it’s the “dog bites man” rule of journalism - report what is sensational and different. A dog biting a man is nothing interesting; a man biting a dog, on the other hands…

There’s nothing conservative about socialism.

Except in an already socialist arena, of course. Conservative is not an absolute word; it only describes something as part of a continuum of established practice. If you mean “right wing”, say so.

There’s nothing good about socialism at all. If you want to destroy an area, make it public property. If you want to destroy an institution, socialize it.

Baseless rhetoric alert! Unless you’re committing the elementary mistake of confusing states which called themselves socialist with actual socialism, the practice (strictly defined within the dominant Marxist paradigm as a situation wherein workers are not separated from the means of production) can and does work.

It includes a good variety of real life antidotal exapmples of what is going on.

The problem is not just for the poor, it is a problem for those that are less than wealthy.

The problem is the multiple layers of Insurance company red tape and the millions of people that manage increasingly complex layers of forms, procedures, and middle men.
(if you don’t need health insurance and can pay out of pocket you are in fine shape and nothing needs to change)

This is actually an excellent reason to quickly remove from consideration socialized health-care. Everyone agrees that the private sector is more efficient in anything it does than the government, right?

Ex said that socialized health-care is, “a very sensible and conservative measure that would dramatically aid individuals and families and, indeed, also business.”

Absolute nonsense.
1 - Individuals who can afford health insurance are dramatically better served by our current system.
2 - Individuals who don’t work or are very poor already can receive free (or $15-25/visit) healthcare at clinics and charity hospitals located in all major and most minor cities in America. It is not as good as the kind you pay for (you probably can’t get a free liver transplant, for example), but it is free or almost free, depending upon where you live and your income level.

Socializing the whole thing would not raise the quality of health-care available to the poor, it would only lower the level available to the working class.

As we see in Canada and England, it’s a fine system, until you get really sick. At that point, there’s a pretty good chance you are going to die before they get around to fixing you.

There’s nothing conservative about socialism. There’s nothing good about socialism at all. If you want to destroy an area, make it public property. If you want to destroy an institution, socialize it.

Gandalf, being British you probably have your own views on this. In my decade living here thus far, I have come to sense that the NHS serves as much of a psychological purpose as a treatment one. Sometimes, more so. People just like to know it’s there. It’s like the Fire Department: You never want to have to call them, but if you do you are thrilled to know that the firemen won’t turn up at your house fire and offer to put out only the most immediate, life-threatening flames until you produce your insurance forms…and THEN they will deal with the rest of the fire, or demand immediate cash or credit card payment in order to do so.

In particular, I don’t like what I’m seeing because I feel like we’ve seen this all before. Republicans must not face their own “1945″ next year. Churchill and the Conservatives in the Wartime Coalition KNEW by early that year that in the coming general election, the British public was expecting health insurance and other benefits. They hesitated, didn’t get heart and soul behind the planned measures, and the voters sensed that equivocation. The consequence was the Attlee Labour landslide, and the creation of the NHS…but in an inflexible, socialist mindset. It took over 30 years for Conservatives under Thatcher to be able even to begin to address those structural problems.

Republicans must not let that happen in 2008. They know the real world better than do most Democrat-policymakers and opinion-drivers. Often, Republicans run businesses, especially small businesses, and know of the danger of “red tape”. The last thing we need is an American health insurance overhall orchestrated by the likes of community college professors and “Move On”. But if the Republicans get creamed in 2008 at least partly because they have failed to grasp the true pulse of the overwhelming majority of the American public on this one issue, that may be what we get courtesy of a Democratic president and Democratic, filibuster-proof Senate and House.

And that would likely be an economic and big government nightmare. Yet Americans today are obviously distressed. The War on Terror is not perceived as going well. (The problems in Iraq don’t even require mentioning.) People feel a world adrift. Republicans can’t solve “terror” or most other of life’s problems anymore than Democrats can. But getting a grip on the health insurance issue in the U.S. is definitely solvable, and Republicans must try to get ahead of the curve on this now, and not be perceived as unsympathetic in the manner of the 1945 British Conservatives.

Americans don’t want a “nanny state” any more than do most British. Like most British, in a topsy-turvy world, Americans merely wish someone would take a worry or two off their plates. In the U.S., a big one is health insurance, and that’s one worry that actually can be reduced greatly — and it should be Republicans who do it right and get the credit for doing so.

I think the US could develop a working health care system that would help the most vulnerable while still allowing individual choice in health coverage, without direct government provided care. We just need a little of that individualist, frontier, can-do spirit reintroduced back into the American spirit. God knows I’ve seen little of it in the last few years (especially from the far-left regional enclaves).

I suspect the trick in the US is to reduce the nonproductive parts of health care, including all those folks pushing the wretched forms around.

Plus, of course, tort reform…

BTW, The Diplomad is back