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Whoa! Is that defeated Democrat governor wannabe Terry McAuliffe with Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger at the U.S. game at the World Cup? It is! Forget the game. There really must be a party going on in South Africa!

I’m as hardcore a soccer fan as you will find, yet even my mind was temporarily derailed from the intensity of the U.S. soccer team’s second round World Cup match against Ghana Saturday when I saw the obligatory shot of the VIP box. I knew Bill Clinton was there — he was there at the Algeria game a a few days before. Seeing Jagger next to him was only a mild surprise. (Hillary, do you know where your husband is — and who he is hangin’ with?) Bill is the honorary chairman of U.S. Soccer’s bid committee to host either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, so it was actually expected of him to attend.

But McAuliffe? Why is T-Mac there? Other than in his longtime role as Clinton consigliere, why is the wannabe governor in South Africa? Is he a big soccer fan? Just wanted to party with Bill and Mick? That’s not too gubernatorial looking. In fact, why be governor of Virginia when you can jet off with the international swank set at the drop of a taxpayer dollar (as being in the company of a former president entails security)?

T-Mac (on the left, of course) jinxes the U.S. soccer team (along with Bill Clinton and Mick Jagger). Have you ever seen three completely different facial expressions of people watching the same thing?

But that’s not the point. The point is T-Mac jinxed us! Four years of hard work, an exhilarating win over Algeria, winning our group and for what? So T-Mac, who wore Carolina blue to a U.Va. game during his 2009 Democrat primary campaign, could rub off his sports neophyte negative karma on us? (See the tweets about the T-Mac curse his sighting set off.) No doubt, this will be a big issue when he ramps up again in 2013. Not that Clinton and Jagger get off the hook either. Here is what former Germany superstar and national team coach (and possible future U.S. coach) Jurgen Klinsmann said on ESPN about Clinton and his coterie:

Clinton and company: A distraction for the U.S. team! Hey, if the libs can blame everything on George W, why not blame our loss on Clinton and McAuliffe?

So one of the game’s greats says the U.S. team was distracted by its sudden fame and bandwaggon climbing by Clinton and McAuliffe! We won’t forget Terry! We won’t forget! Here is the evidence of the Clinton corruption of the U.S. team:

Fans want to use “video evidence” in soccer. We got it right here — Clinton breaking training with team captain Carlos Bocanegra.

In the debate over health care “reform,” liberals point to models in England, Canada and other socialist countries as systems we should emulate, despite their abject failures and rationing. The next time a liberal tells you the Euros do it better, agree. Then add, “if you mean Switzerland.”

Switzerland?

Yes. It just so happens Switzerland has, perhaps, the best consumer driven approach to the health care marketplace. There are spots of consumer driven health care percolating here, such as “doc-in-box” services and clinics at chains such as Wal-Mart and CVS, which drive down prices for non-emergency care. But Switzerland is where it’s at, according to Regina Herzlinger, the Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard, no less, and author of Who Killed Health Care? (and this Washington Post piece).

She was the featured speaker today at the Tuesday Morning Group monthly meeting in Richmond. Here’s how it works there, in a nutshell:

There is a government mandate: All citizens must buy health care coverage, because neither the government nor employers provide any! The result is massive competition and more than 80 insurance companies in that small nation. (What is the U.S. down to? Six, not including the government?) Even nuns in the mountains have formed insurance companies.

The policies have high deductibles so people are not tempted to use their insurance when you have an earache. People are forced to more cost effectively spend on their health care. This creates competition for services, just like any other trade, such as computers, phones, restaurants or clothes: Health care providers line up to provide the best service possible, or a niche service that’s needed, at the best cost possible to win customers. Because customers pay out of their own pocket, there’s no haggling by insurance companies and government to determine a price in which doctors must settle for their service. Instead, doctors set their own prices and if patients don’t like it, they go to someone else. Insurance is used for what it is really intended — serious illness or injury.

The result is health care costs are 5 percent lower in Switzerland than here and takes up only 11 percent of GDP, while it accounts for 17 percent here. Not only that, insurance companies rebate you half your money if you stay healthy. They also create reinsurance pools among themselves to minimize risk.

But if the Obama administration doesn’t want to look to the one European country that does it right — better, in fact than we do it now — maybe he’ll stop apologizing for America long enough to look to a country we supposedly had to apologize to. Dr. Herzlinger pointed to an experiment in South Africa, of all places, where an insurance company paid clients to stay healthy. It motivated them to eat right, live a better lifestyle and exercise. The result is that the percentage of certain illnesses are lower in the RSA than in the USA.

One last observation by Dr. Herzlinger: If you think outsourcing of certain jobs is bad now, wait until socialized medicine is approved by Congress and the Obama administration. She predicts jobs and services will get exported to India, Singapore, Brazil, Costa Rica and Argentina.