Yet another proposal for turning over our health care to the people who run Amtrak.

I'm listening to a doctor on talk radio even now extolling the virtues of single payer, which, for some bizarre reason, he insists is totally different from socialized medicine.

The physicians call for national health insurance that would cover every American for all necessary medical care - in essence an expanded and improved version of traditional Medicare.

-- Patients could choose to go to any doctor and hospital. Most hospitals and clinics would remain privately owned and operated, receiving a budget from the NHI to cover all operating costs. Physicians could continue to practice on a fee-for-service basis, or receive salaries from group practices, hospitals or clinics.

--The program would be paid for by combining current sources of government health spending into a single fund with modest new taxes that would be fully offset by reductions in premiums and out-of-pocket spending.

--The proposed single payer NHI would save at least $200 billion annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry and reducing spending for marketing and other satellite services.

--Administrative savings would fully offset the costs of covering the uninsured as well as giving full prescription drug coverage to all Americans.

If you buy all this, please contact me about a ONCE IN A LIFETIME business deal I have for you.

If anyone thinks that the government is going to pay so-called "private" hospitals without government bureaucrats managing everything at the molecular level...well, see previous sentence.

How do you think the aforementioned hospital "budget" will be negotiated? Who will have the final say on what money will be spent on? Who will have the final say on who will be treated and who will not?

When I was going to the University of Minnesota, there was a guy who hung out on corners passing out pamphlets with his brilliant idea: if everyone just did everything for free, and there was no money, the world would be a paradise. A five-year-old could have seen that wouldn't work. Same is true for "National Health Insurance," and for similar reasons.

Market forces are not just theoretical opinions. They are as real and inescapable as gravity, and when someone tells you you can walk across the Grand Canyon on a flashlight beam, you should remember that.

The detailed proposal can be found here.