Stephen Dorrell's Health Committee was, as he put it, engaged in "real-time legislating" as the coalition ran into trouble over the Health and Social Care Bill - with the Conservative former health secretary emerging as something of an arbiter of the government's proposals.
The trouble is that many Americans are understandably happy with all-you-can-eat health care, which allows them to see any doctor they like and get any test that they are talked into thinking they need.