Thank you, Dennis, for a real-world view from a nation that has found the will to implement genuine universal healthcare.  I, too, take it as a given that if universal coverage is truly the goal, a single payer system is the way to get there. Our president seems to have recently discovered -- his drivel during the campaign and transition to the contrary notwithstanding -- that healthcare is complicated and that devising a workable plan is hard work. However, what is really lacking here -- what makes the problem intractable -- is a fundamental difference between those who regard healthcare as a human right and those who regard it as just another widget in the economy, subject to market forces and available to those who can pay for it. Ali Velshi, a business correspondent for MSNBC, makes the point that no nation on earth provides universal coverage by way of a market-driven system. That's neither the goal nor the intention of those who reduce healthcare to a widget.