Daniel Hannan has a good piece on the NHS:

The elision of the “hardworking doctors and nurses” with the state monopoly that employs them is what allows opponents of reform to shout down any criticism. People who complain are treated, not as wronged consumers, but as pests. People who argue that there might be a better way of organising the system are treated, not as proponents of a different view, but as enemies.

Any organisation that is spared criticism becomes, over time, inefficient, insensitive, intolerant. It has happened to the United Nations. It has happened to the mega-charities. It happened, for a long time, to the European Union (though not over the past five years). The more lofty the ideal, the more reluctant people are to look at the grubby reality.

We can’t let that happen here. I’m sure that many of the people behind this legislative atrocity would love to jail its critics, if they could.

Thoughts on the current health-care mess from Walter Russell Mead.

…begins to emerge.

We know they always wanted to get to single payer. They’ll do whatever they have to in order to push toward that goal. The question is whether or not the Republicans and voters let them get away with it. Of course, a few lawsuits would help as well.