Rynar, are you aware of how much government regulation of nurses is already in place here in the US, and how useful that regulation is?
Here's the listing of disciplinary actions for Arizona. How would you implement some sort of self-regulation as an alternative to state nursing boards?
As to the stuff in the article, yeah, its bad. But there's only two sentences in it that you use to demonstrate that the problem is "systemic", whereas it could be argued that the article only demonstrates one hospital with a (rather apparently large) problem. But on the other hand, this also isn't the first story I've read about neglect problems in the UK's 4 healthcare services systems. This could be argued that the problem resides not in the fact that the systems are run by the government, but that its a problem unique to the UK's healthcare industry as a whole.
Plus there are the fundamental differences between the UK and US systems. Frankly, the differences are so vast that I just don't see a truly "UK-like" seizure of the healthcare industry here in the States you say the Democrats are pushing. To put it bluntly, there's no way in hell the government can afford to buyout, seize, or even run something along the lines of 90% of the US's hospitals in an attempt to match the UK government's 92-94% ownership of their nation's hospitals.
Another big difference between the two systems is the delivery of nursing care in hospitals. In the UK, doctors in hospitals do a lot more stuff, stuff that in the US a nurse is expected to do. In the UK, if the procedure is at all invasive, even just the placement of an IV, a doctor will likely do it. For the most part, docs in the states do far less "hands on" day to day care, with the exception of ER and intensive care docs. I've had two Britsh nurses I've worked with tell me that a US RN working in a care center is more along the lines of what a UK hospital nurse does. This could be one contributing factor to some of the neglect issues the UK system seems to be having.