With all due respect to the risks of a nanny state, quite real, this is Japan we’re talking about. Japan has a very heavy societal pressure component. Individualism is simply not valued like it is here. There is a Japanese saying: “The nail that sticks up gets pounded down.”
There may be risks as you say, but this is an apples to oranges argument. We are the most individualistic nation in the world... for now, anyway.
Perhaps you have not read or watched the news in the last year or so....
Just a reminder that that this nation just elected the most Liberal Senator as our next president and gave him substantial majorities in both houses of congress.
And both the new president and the congress is in favor of universal health care.
Governments are never able to run an efficient anything. That is because government bureaucracies are run for the benefit of the goverment workers not the people receiving the service they provide. That is logical all organizations are run for the benefit of those picking up the tab. If the goverment picks up the tab then it is run to benefit the goverment. So when (not if) we get universal health care it will be run to benefit goverment.. And that means it must greatly reduce services to the recipients. It has nothing to do with the American people. They just pay the governemt.. the goverment wil pay for the health care.