Roanoke Times' New Anti-Bush Tactic -- Pushing the Welfare State?

Commonwealth Conservative carries a link to an interesting column by Michael Barone which addresses Democratic attempts to create a European-style welfare state.

This article especially caught Salt Lick's eye inasmuch as he's noticed what might be a trend in the Roanoke Times' editorial page pushing a national healthcare system. Yesterday, for the second time in weeks (see analysis of Feb. 28 editorial here) a Roanoke Times' editorial has hinted that it's time for government to kill "the business" of healthcare:

New thinking is in order -- not just for Medicaid, though, but for the entire health care 'industry.'...[Arnold] Relman, a professor emeritus of medicine and of social medicine at Harvard Medical School, makes a strong argument that the commercialization of medicine underlies its growing deficiences. Medicine is not just a business like any other, and treating it as such has made U.S. health care the most expensive in the world, but far from the most effective.

Is this just another manifestation of Bush-hate at the Roanoke Times? Or is it a sincere philosophical belief that government will run healthcare better than private enterprise? On the other hand, with all the talk of Hillary Clinton being the Democratic Presidential candidate in 2008, coupled with Ms. Clinton's effort to seize control of healthcare during her husband's adminstration, Salt Lick wonders if we are seeing a new front in the war on American freedom at home, just as we are winning the one overseas.