A lot of the socialist fantasy is about simplifying things, and "structure."

In transportation: mass transit and strict controls over what cars you can buy. In housing: "new towns," and "planned urban communities." And in way too many historical cases, in politics, one party. In almost everything they propose, the bottom line is control.

"Choice" inherently consumes more resources and effort than lack of it. How much more efficient would it be if there were only one brand of everything in the grocery store? Our current health care system is more Byzantine than a number of others, but it delivers for the vast majority of Americans.

I am fully aware of the inroads into individual freedom that having the government be the sole source of health care would create. When the state is paying for your health care, is there any part of your behavior that they cannot legitimately control to keep your costs down? This is already used as the excuse for adult seat belt and helmet laws. How long do you think smoking would remain legal? Sports?

Many people, apparently including you, have no problems with the private insurance industry remaining in business. A lot of other people think the sooner they're rubbed out, the better. Wonder who will win.

If it was just about aiding the poor and uninsured, the Left in this country would support specific programs targeted toward those people and no others, which would be cheaper and more effective than a universal system. Same for all other entitlements. But the problem with that is that there aren't enough poor for that to give the politicians the political power they need.

The primary political function of Social Security as presently configured is to take the most reliable voting bloc in America and enslave them to the government. That this statement pisses people off doesn't make it any less true. Universal health care would do this for the entire population, which is why the idea gives leftists chronic priapism.

I haven't even touched on what price controls will do to the most advanced medical technology producers on the planet.