A commenter named "Surrender" posted a comment to my latest article (to the Patriot-News blog), and in keeping with my standard practice, I'm posting a reply of my own.  First, the comment:

"You are definately [sic] correct in your assessment of the human nature. In fact I will get on your bandwagon and and get off of mine as soon as I pay off the $72,000 dollars my wife and I owe to various (and I do mean many various) medical providers at this time. But my son is alive for now and he did get the best medical care money could buy. Thanks for the insight."

Next, my reply:

I must be missing something, but I sure don't see any bandwagon here, only an analysis of why national health care has failed, essentially, in other countries, and why it will fail here.  Yes, some countries have achieved something like "universal" health care coverage, but due to cost constraints, which always exist for any service provider, they have had to resort to regulations restricting access to care in one way or another.  In Great Britain, for example, a government medical board decides what care is "worth" providing, and in Canada, private coverage and medical care are illegal.

I take it your "bandwagon" is that you think the taxpayer should pay your $72,000 medical bills for you.  I'm truly sorry for your misfortune, but without more information, I can only guess as to reason you failed to provide health insurance for your family.  I don't want to make assumptions, so I won't, but let me give you some of the reasons I've seen for people not providing health insurance for themselves.  Most of them involved wanting to pay for other, things, such as bigger houses or cars or boats or any number of things they thought were more important to them.  Most of them were young and healthy, at least at the time, so most of them won their gamble.  Some didn't, but not even all of them think the taxpayer should pay to bail themselves out of a predicament of their own making.

However, fear can cloud even the most intelligent people's judgment.  (Just look who sits in the White House, for example.)  One story I find particularly revealing in this regard involves a guy I used to work with, a man who is a normally sensible person but who's judgment was clouded on the health care issue by personal experience.  The conversation on this topic started with him averring that government could and should do something about health care.  He wasn't sure what it was, but he was dead certain there was "something" "they" could do.  When I pushed him for a reason why, it turned out that his daughter and son-in-law have no health care insurance because his son-in-law's employer didn't provide it, and his daughter just worked part time (or something like that.)  Well, that's easy, I said, the son-in-law could find another job with an employer who provides coverage as part of their benefits package.  No, he replied, that wasn't possible, because this company paid a much higher salary than its competitors.

Well, of course they pay more salary, because they don't have to pay for health insurance.  When I pointed out this obvious trade off, and that his daughter and son-in-law had made a choice (as do we all), he wasn't too impressed.  He stood firm, saying that government should at least dictate maximum prices.  In a previous conversation, this same gentleman indicated that he well understood what price caps meant in, say, the petroleum industry - shortages.  When I reminded him of this fact and asked him why he thought the health care industry was any different, he returned to the liberal mantra:  "'They' should be able to do something."

So, I'm sorry Mr. "Surrender", but there's no bandwagon here.  The laws of economics are as inexorable as the laws of physics.  When Newton saw the apple release from the tree, it fell, and when government interferes with the market for health care, there will be rationing and other forms of shortages.  You can take that to the bank, and you're welcome for that bit of insightful analysis, too.