Personal stories are a great rhetorical device, especially for the kinds of people that remain skeptical, long after the established facts and statistics are spelled out. Cory Doctorow doesn't necessarily have a compelling story, but because of his prominence in the blogosphere, I thought I'd paste in his bit:

I've lived under the Canadian, US, British and Costa Rican health care systems and of the four, I believe that the Canadian one functions best (I'd rank them Canadian, British, Costa Rican and US). My experience with all four includes routine and urgent care. I've had firsthand experience of pre-and post-natal care in Canada, the US and the UK; I've also seen the Canadian, US and UK palliative care system in action.