The two most irritating sentences I find myself typing over and over on this website are:
1. "There are many pathways to universal healthcare"
&
2. "No, the Democratic party would not be a center right party in European countries either in social or economic terms"

& if you're going to come at me from the economic angle, plz do some research into EU center right parties. There's a lot of btwn-country variation, but these parties typically aim towards increased privatization of public systems & deregulation of industry. Dems do the opposite.

A related area is austerity. To look at recent history, examine how many EU countries chipped away at funding their extant safety nets, esp in healthcare, during the recession. What did the US do under Dems? A massive expansion of healthcare.

Now, the ACA is far from perfect and I want a much greater public role as well as the eventual minimization/near-elimination of private insurance in the system. That said, it's simply true that the U.S. expanded our healthcare system when many EU countries were cutting theirs.

You can't just compare a party in absolute economic terms across countries. This is especially the case when you have massive generational differences in building of the social safety net/welfare state.

The proposals Dems have for improving our own welfare state are pretty extreme when measured against the extant state itself, as well as our economy. And they are certainly not w/in the domain of *most* EU conservative parties, who, again, are pro-privatization & lowering taxes.

Truman wanted an NHS type system after WWII, but was thwarted by various forces, including the AMA & segregationists. I wish he had been successful. But he wasn't. Western EU countries largely managed to build up public systems where we did not.

This has created a situation in which *decades* of a system entrench that system both in public life & in our economy, not to mention the cost of hospitals to run, etc. It's hard to shift from this level of entrenchment. We should do it, but it's not a snap of the fingers.

And recognizing that such a shift is difficult, not just politically, but logistically & economically (to put it lightly) does not make Democrats as conservative as center-right parties who want to vastly *decrease* the government role in their healthcare systems.

Also the factoid about Truman & his desire for an NHS or something similar should remind everyone that 1. no economic justice w/out social justice & 2. racism has been one of the major barriers to expanding our own welfare state throughout both the 20th & 21st centuries.