Have you actually encountered anyone advocating for the former or is that just a bizarre strawman?

Yes, most people are in some form. Of course they don't realize it, they just want free and cannot think through the consequences of what they are asking for. Free health care is easy to explain. How do you pay for it isn't, and it gets harder when you have to figure out how much to pay the bureaucrats needed to make it work.

Solving the problem of health care costs getting higher is a hard problem. I haven't seen any solution that accounts for all the external factors. I doubt we even know them.

> Yes, most people are in some form. Of course they don't realize it, they just want free and cannot think through the consequences of what they are asking for.

I see people say this about other people all the time, but I honestly have yet to meet someone who legitimately expects health care to be 'free'. They all realize that it just means paid by taxpayers. Which tax payers? That varies...

I don't believe anyone is suggesting enslaving doctors and nurses, any time, anywhere. (I'll adjust this if you now come back and say you believe medical professionals should be enslaved as a form of national health care.)

The discussion always assumes they will be compensated, and as is pointed out often, the question is how.

I mean communists generally advocate that wage labor is equivalent to slavery.