Quoth Colby Cosh:

...how exactly is the U.S. going to adopt a single-payer national health care system "like Canada's"? The United States is missing an essential component of the Canadian system--namely, a large neighbour to the south with a working economy and a market-based health system.

The funny thing about all of this is that if health care was actually overpriced in America, as some politicians allege, it would get cheaper due to market forces because people would defer surgery, leading to doctors geting hit in the pocketbook and lowering their prices. (The presence of an insurance oligopoly doesn't affect this basic equation; doctors don't get paid if people don't use them.)