True healthcare reform has to include tort reform.
It also has to tackle the problem of big pharma.
My beef with gov run healthcare was many fold. A big one was - why on earth do I want the GOVERNMENT in charge of handling my healthcare? I've seen how they do housing. I've seen how they run VA hospitals. I've seen how they run just about everything.
I've had to do battle with government agencies my entire adult life, AND I have worked for the federal government most of my life. That it exists - at all - is a necessary evil, but it in no way does a good job of it.
THAT - is simply issue number one.
Number two is - generally, across the board, nations that have government run healthcare have any one or several of the following problems - lack of avaiable specialists, long waits, complex rules to qualify for procedures and so on. Another is - typically, as in an emergency room - care is metered out by urgency. Triage. Your care is going to be rationed.
It's a simple concept - when something is *FREE*, you can bet it will be exploited. It's kind of the basic reason why we have copays - it's to keep people from clogging the medical system with every scrape and sniffle and imagined malady.
Because of this - it's reduced quality of care.
So - what was the ratonale for upending all of the health care industry? A measurable number of people had no health care - somewhere in the tens of millions. Otherwise - easily 85% of more of all Americans had health care.
The intelligent thing to do then, was - find a solution that FIXES IT FOR THE FIFTEEN PERCENT. Because when they implemented it, overnight, people LOST healthcare they were previously quite happy with.
Not all "government healthcare" systems are the same. The very worst ones are where you just go in, and it's free, like a public restroom. Show your card, and it is free, if you don't mind waiting. MANY nations with national healthcare - you do buy insurance - sometimes, tiered insurance - and the nation has a structure for standardizing the costs of procedures which includes doctors. insurance companies and government. Makes it much easier for insurance companies. The easiest way to describe France's healthcare is just that - they had a national standardized HEALTH INSURANCE plan, but beyond that, the government isn't in charge.
BUT - to your point -------------
Take a look at national expenditures on health care and medical care going back, say, forty to fifty years. It's a joke. It is simply unbelievable that we spend that kind of money.
I mean, look at this thing. It's not JUST that it goes up so fast from nearly nothing. It's doubled just in ten years. What the hell is going on?
I'll tell you - it's a freaking gravy train for many. THIS is why government should not be in charge of health care. As PJ O'Rourke once said, if you think healthcare is expensive now, wait till you see how much it costs when it's "FREE" .