Excellent summary on the differences between health care and housing! Yes, it's a form of 'corporate socialism', all right.

I would add one more point: the (in)ability to comparison-shop.

In housing, and most other things (food, cars, clothing, etc.), we usually have lots of advance notice about our needs and the ability to do a lot of research and comparison shopping. In many if not most cases any particular purchase is optional (steak or chicken? buy a new car or keep the old one another year? move or fix up the old place?) and we can wheel and deal to a certain extent.

But in many if not most situations you don't have that option with health care. If you're injured in an accident or having a heart attack you can't shop for the best deal in an emergency room/trauma center. There are so many possible ailments that nobody can become knowledgeable about all of them ahead of time; that's why there are medical specialists.

So the free-market model doesn't work very well with health care.

Would have to pay for that leg surgery. Oh, they very well might have operated on him without an insurance card, but they most definitely mailed him a bill.

It's not "universal" care. You know, it doesn't cover everybody in the universe. Just citizens.

Also, wealthy Europeans come to America for treatment, not the other way around. Why? Because we have the best healthcare in the world...if you can afford it (which, by the way, I'm sure you can). Why? Because we have incentivized medicine.

Will you be willing to wait in line like everyone else under a socialized healthcare system? If you want the best specialist in the world to treat your child of some terrible illness, are you prepared to wait in line instead of using the wealth you fairly accumulated to gain a fair advantage?

It would be interesting to see.

That's because doctors need to make a living. So, they need money. And how can our government pay for it, when it is already $11 Trillion in the hole? Why should we pay for Octomom's kids, along with her welfare? Why should we pay for smokers who kill themselves? Why should we pay for the healthcare of a nation in which obesity is the number one killer? Let people be responsible for themselves, get our country out of the hole, into the black, and then maybe we can pay for public healthcare.

sIt seems like at least every month or two in my town there's a fundraiser for someone with cancer or who needs money for other medical care -- something for which there would be no need if we lived in a civilized country.

A year or so ago there was an outstanding documentary on public television's Frontline, "Sick Around the World" examining the health care systems in 4 or 5 other modern industrial democracies. The narrator asked the Japanese and the Swiss ministers (separately) whether anyone in their country had to file for bankruptcy because they couldn't pay their medical bills. The each had the same reaction -- something akin to what you would expect their reaction to be if the narrator had dropped his pants and gone to the bathroom on the floor in front of them or asked them if they cooked their children for dinner. One replied in horor "Of course not -- that would be a great scandal if it happened."

It's too bad we can't pause a minute from constantly congratulating ourselves as a country how great we are to see that much of the world coniders us barbarians and to take some time to consider whether in some respects they may be right, or at a minimum look at what other countries do and consider whether we should emulate them rather than reinvent the wheel with some Rube Goldberg contraption.

"ut in many if not most situations you don't have that option with health care. If you're injured in an accident or having a heart attack you can't shop for the best deal in an emergency room/trauma center."

That's exactly the situation medical insurance is supposed to be for. Are you old enough to remember the days when an individual could buy "major medical" that for a reasonable premium would cover high-end trauma and disease? Because an individual could shop for it you could, pre-need, pick out a set of high deductibles that fit your personal situation.

This has nothing to do with the "insurance" you are now forced to get from your employer, and your employer alone, which is really a prepayment scheme with rationing.

writes: "doctors need to make a living."

Sure - but how much of the money spent on health care in the USA actually goes to doctors, nurses hospitals and other providers, and how much to insurance companies and administration?

"how can our government pay for it, when it is already $11 Trillion in the hole?"

The government doesn't pay for it. WE pay for it. We're paying for it now, in both obvious and hidden ways.

"Why should we pay for Octomom's kids, along with her welfare?"

Octomom's kids were the result of IVF, an elective procedure. I don't know who paid for it - do you? IMHO, insurance of any kind should NEVER pay for someone in her situation to conceive more kids!

"Why should we pay for smokers who kill themselves?"

One way to fund a better healthcare system is with big taxes on things like tobacco.

We pay for the smokers today, anyhow.

"Why should we pay for the healthcare of a nation in which obesity is the number one killer?"

See above about tobacco. Note that as smoking has decreased, obesity has increased. That's not a coincidence.

"Let people be responsible for themselves, get our country out of the hole, into the black, and then maybe we can pay for public healthcare."

How do you propose that "people be responsible for themselves" - specifically?

I agree that smoking and being overweight are very bad for health, and we should have incentives to do healthy things. But who decides where the line is drawn? Do we deny health care coverage to anyone who has ever smoked? Or who is more than 5 pounds over ideal weight?

The big reason the budget is so unbalanced is that for years and years the administrations have pushed for big spending but not big taxes. Look at what the debt was in 1980, and what it was in 1992, 2000, and 2008. See who it was that dug that $11 trillion hole, and what they spent the money on.