Military Medicine - The Argument Against Socialized Health Care

As an aside to the Walter Reed post below, and a veteran of the military's awful HMO/single payer hybrid health care system (not the care itself - that was pretty good), this highlights the fundamental reasons why liberal proposals of socialized medicine are ridiculous.

Even the best intentioned government run health service can break down. And when it's the only game in town, and the bureaucrats in charge of it are about as accountable for their performance and at risk of being fired as a professor with tenure, that breakdown is inevitable.

To all the liberals who see the Walter Reed scandal (rightly) as an example of government failing its people, why do you insist on foisting such a system on the whole of the American public (except those rich enough to buy foreign insurance, as Canadians have been doing in droves for years)? And wounded war vets tend to get the attention of the public, and thus Congress - how about the rest of the regular schlubs who aren't as useful as political props? Do you want George W. Bush in charge of your health care decisions? Why is it that listening to international phone calls to Afghani caves is the historically unprecedented trammeling of our civil rights and is proof of a sinister American fascist state, but demanding that all US Citizens be forced under penalty of law to turn over ALL control of their medical records and treatment options (among the most personal and private of our lives and choices) to the Federal Government isn't?