In response to David Gergen's comment: "We don't think like Canadians. We don't accept government the way it is. We're not deferential to authority the way Canadians are or in Western Europe."
. . . unlike the authoritarian Canadians who subserviantly submit themselves to a socialistic medical system, we individualistic Americans are more than happy to allow certain authorities great discretion. They are even allowed to torture innocent people merely if they don't like their attitude. Putting the health care system under the auspices of the police, makes all resistance to Big Government authoritariansim vanish completely.
If we simply redefine illness as a crime (which these panelists largely agreed it already was) we can incarcerate the sick people and provide them with health care without running up against our freedom loving anti-authoritarianism. In fact, the concept of an individual mandate without adequate subsidies and a public plan will automatically turn the 47 million uninsured into criminals if they don't immediately start paying the private insurance companies an expensive tribute (the coverage will be nearly non-existant, after all), so we're part way there already!
Clearly, we have no problem putting people in jail; it's government providing health care that offends our reverence for liberty. Let's "reboot" the health care debate and make getting sick a crime. In the land of the free, it's pretty much the only way to get to universal health care. I have no doubt it would be a huge bipartisan victory.