Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for plucky misfits and problem solvers.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton.

Back in Scotland this week, so if you could

water my plants while I'm out of town. That'd be swell. Also, water my mail while you're at it. Thanks.

I sure do meet a lot of Europeans and a question I ask pretty much all of them for coming

up on a decade now is do you like your country's health care?

Everyone emphatically says yes, and then convey their pity, mystification, and a touch of anger at the United States' utter failure

to provide universal health care.

They are amazed that a modern developed nation like America, what with our superior mall and truck technology,

does not have nationalized health care like Britain or single-payer health care,

a la Canada, or some kind of super-romny-care hybrid model like Germany.

They are astonished.

And for the record, I think our health care is horrible. More on that later.

Then I ask our new European friend, do you think your

health care system would be improved if instead of being run by your country there

was one big European Union health care system by your

Dutch health care system run out of Brussels.

If you could scrap your Dutch health care

and instead have a big EU health care service agency for everyone, would you want to do that?

And to date, out of all the Europeans I've questioned, Over 10 years, literally every single one over a decade, no one has

told me yes. Rather, they say something to this effect.

I, a technocratic, European Sophisticant, who likes the idea of socialism and speaks three

...