I think as usual the Onion has the right answer: Americans without health insurance attack plan to give them health insurance.
No society has a model healthcare system: the “but people will die” argument means emotional compromises are always made somewhere in the system. That said, the numbers suggest that the US system is more expensive than ours and produces at best a similar result (other than for the 50m who don’t have cover).
Very interesting debating strategy from the Republicans: start way out on left field (example: national healthcare: breeding ground for terror? !!!! Death panels.). I wonder if Cameron is looking to this kind of direction?