[hga]

While many of us would argue with the "nice things" concept (ScottWhigham grossly overestimates the nation's enthusiasm for socialism at the beginning of this thread), it doesn't take away from his point that it's stupid to try such grand projects while we have a demonstrated inability to do them.

I mean, the government is taking control of 1/6 of the nation's economy, why ever did the Obamacare enthusiasts think this would work even vaguely well???

[brown9-2]

To be fair, the government isn't "taking control" of healthcare - they haven't assumed control over every private health insurance company.

[hga]

And how many of those "private" insurance companies can still write "major medical" high deductible catastrophic coverage polices that so many of us have used in time past as ... gasp, insurance, as opposed to a tax advantaged benefit + originally a way to get around WWII wage controls? Etc. etc.

In a system that's structurally rather close to Original Formula Italian fascism, how "private" nominally non-government companies are when so much of what they can and cannot do is highly debatable, to the point where I think your quibble is very very minor.