Universal healthcare

I have a lovely relative(truthfully, not just buttering her up) who likes the idea of universal healthcare. We've debated it many times but I don't think I make my points well.

So I'll let someone else make it:

Stop worrying about how the level and quantity of individual care will foreverafter be subject to congressional budgetary constraints - your bypass, your kidney transplant, your arthroscopic knee surgery, they're now budgetary line items - and no matter how much you feel you need them, someone else will be making the decisions: "You don't need ACL surgery, just get a brace. And in a few years, a wheelchair." And so on. If you don't think this will happen - remember that your health will now be in the hands of the same people who determined that our soldiers' vehicles didn't need to be heavily armored. That their bodies didn't need to be heavily armored. The stewards of your health will now be the same people who build bridges to nowhere, or who last year, spent a day in-session honoring the Superbowl Champions.

And another good point from the same post:

When it comes to healthcare, I too am nervous that it's quality may (sic) decline for me. But I'm scared to death that it will provide the excuse for government to micromanage my life even more than the income tax code does. You can already see it in the debates about motorcycle helmets. The idiocy question aside, the big argument says "since society is paying your medical bills, it gets to dictate what risks you can take.