It sure feels like I'm talking to aliens sometimes ;)

Yep.

I like to really speak Martian to people and tell them that the partnership between healthcare and government has proven throughout history to be the most lethal, intrusive example of moral hazard and social engineering mankind has ever devised.

I commend you on an audience that will accept the choice argument. Many I've talked to either don't connect those dots or aren't as concerned about personal liberty to really care about government involvement. Their primary focus is "will I have healthcare?"

I don’t run in Objectivist-only circles, but I can effectively argue against government health care without a two-hour primer on Objectivism (or a two-hour primer on supply, demand, price, rationing, and non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods and services). I simply bring the issue of individual choice front and center. Everybody understands the importance of choice, and everybody wants to be free to make their own choices. Obama lied that “if you want your doctor, you can keep your doctor” because he understood that the choice of a doctor was a major issue for voters. It’s not difficult or time-consuming to explain to the “man in the street” that without government oversight, he will have more choices of insurance plans, medical providers and types of treatment. And that puts the other side on the defensive, since all of their government health care proposals take away many of the voters’ choices.

Not to disagree with any of that, but how many of us run in Objectivist-only circles? These are good arguments to answer a real gotcha question in a way that doesn't first involve a two-hour primer on Objectivism ;)

Objectivism has a very different view of why government should not be involved in health care. It’s because government exists to protect individuals from force or fraud, and health care is outside the scope of this purpose. So are education, fire protection and welfare. The whole (anti)concept of “public goods” is bogus.