Secondly, other health care systems that employ various forms of non-profit insurance waste far less of their expenditures on health care than we do. So, invoking the waste argument to defend our system of health care financing against others requires one to turn all the evidence on its head.
They probably wouldn't were it not due to all the paperwork from a government with redundant and (in some areas, though in others it's the opposite) over regulation.
Of course, you're assuming that private insurers are
inherently worse, but that is fallacious. Firstly, universal coverage is certainly possible with very few people on government plans. Secondly, while 16% don't have coverage, the 84% that do have coverage usually get better results than other industrialized nations (don't bring up life expectancy or infant mortality, as many other factors contribute to those). The US has one of the highest rates of survival of cancer in the world and the US gets cutting edge treatments before most other countries.
Even if you don't factor that in, what do these countries give up for these lower costs? Well, many ration (I've heard many stories both personally and through the news), you have no choice because places that specialize in certain areas of medicine don't exist. Long waits, decreased pay of physicians, the list goes on and on.
Also, consider the fact that the vast majority of medical research occurs in the US. Have you ever heard of a medical breakthrough from Canada
True, but I have yet to see a plan from the left that seems to have any promise, and I think Yankee would agree.
The market is superior if it has the correct regulations and many of the redundant ones removed, you don't have to tear down the whole system, but simply reform it. Most people see this debate as black and white when it clearly isn't.
