A friend voiced this suggestion to me:

If so many people are not in favor of "government run health care", and it ends up not passing, perhaps then we should eliminate Medicare and Medicaid.

You know, since "government run health care" is such an awful thing. Let the free market sort out all the people who are "helped" by these programs. After all, there is no chance that any of these could be working.

Oh, yeah. While we're at it, let's take away VA benefits too. Those "government run health care" services must not be working, either for the providers or for the recipients of those benefits. Those vets, they're not in the service of this country anymore. So let their employers cover their health care. We'd be doing them a favor.

And those elderly people who are pretty much uninsurable if not for Medicare? Let 'em use the free market to find benefits. After all, many of them have money socked away in IRA's and pension plans and 401K's. Plus, they have cars, flat screen tv's, their houses are paid for. Why should we taxpayers subsidize their health care expenses?
Sell those tv's and cars.

After all, they can all go to the emergency room, where no one can be turned away, and no one has to pay. They can wait in line with the kid whose mom brought him for the second time to the ER because he has ringworm, because they don't have a doctor who will see them because they don't have any money to pay for care.

All or none. Let's not argue this issue in a half-assed manner.