Larry - Quibbling about which level of government provides a basic, essential service misses the point: government already provides basic, essential services - and most of us expect those services as a right. In a developed nation, basic health care should be as much a right as basic education or basic security.

The comparison of socialized medicine to socialized schools and police is direct in most other developed countries. But even in the US it's not as far off as you suggest. Our "local independent" schools are bound up in state and federal financing, standards and unfunded mandates such as 'No Child Left Behind.' Ask any school board member.

And sometimes government can do a better job than the private sector. Administration by private insurance companies absorbs 19 to 24 per cent of the health care dollar; Medicare administration costs run closer to 2 per cent. But then, the faceless bureaucrats aren't pocketing seven-figure salaries.

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