I guess I would disagree with you on that. Given that the U.S. is basically the only first world country that still has private healthcare and it is typically rated somewhere between 15 and 40 world wide on most healthcare metrics, it seems like a number of countries have figured out a way to do public healthcare better... (and more cheaply)
But the real point is that all of those numbers have been increasing over time, and will continue to increase until the governments and countries collapse under the deadweight costs of centralized control. And on the way, we get to have laws bought by special interests and government regulations written by the companies that are supposed to be regulated.
I don't see any facts supporting your assertion that the countries will spontaneously collapse due to the size or spending of their governments... What I do see are a long list of countries with higher tax rates, budget surpluses or much smaller deficits than the USA, and much higher ranked healthcare systems (You point at Greece, I will point at Germany, Norway and Sweden. Let's just get that out of the way).
Let's leave it at this, I am not going to say that a public healthcare system (or a single payer system) is the only right way of doing things. What I will say is there are a lot of other countries out there that are able to provide a better health care system through that route while still remaining financially stable.
Maybe that is just not something that is in the cards for the USA though, maybe the trade off is that you have lower taxes, but a lower life expectancy if you are not wealthy.
I certainly am not going to pretend to know all the answers, but I do think refusing to learn from other countries because they are not doing it the "American" way (read: with a free market) would be a silly reason to accept having one of the worst healthcare systems in the first world.
I don't see any facts supporting your assertion that the countries will spontaneously collapse due to the size or spending of their governments...
Soviet Union.
they are not doing it the "American" way (read: with a free market)
The US does not have a free market in health care, and hasn't since at least World War II, when employers started providing health benefits to attract workers because they were unable to offer higher wages (wages were regulated by the government during the war). A free market would mean everyone sees all of the costs of the health care they receive, and weighs the costs against the expected benefits, and only buys health care for which the expected benefits exceed the costs. Nobody that participates in employer-provided health care (which is most workers in the US) does that; the only costs they see are their portion of the premiums and their copays, so they want whatever health care has a benefit to them that exceeds those costs.
The provider side of the US health care system is not a free market either; a person can't just decide to be a provider. Doctors, nurses, x-ray technicians, etc., etc., all have to be licensed by the government. That is supposed to help guarantee that they are competent, but it also helps to keep costs higher by restricting the supply of providers. (To some extent there are now private clinics trying to end-run around this for basic services like blood pressure or cholesterol screening; but they are limited, and mostly serve people who don't have employer-provided insurance.)
In short, the US health care system is not an example of a free market system that achieves less optimal outcomes than a government system; it's an example of a bastardized part-government part-private system that achieves less optimal outcomes (by some metrics--by others, for example wait times for critical surgeries, it achieves better outcomes) than a government system.
Ahh, "Soviet Union", the answer to every question about the evils of government. I take it that means you don't really want to discuss that point, as "Soviet Union" is hardly and answer, and as I pointed out nearly every other first world country has a "larger" government that the USA, and they are almost all in better financial shape too.
But we have come full circle, and as I mentioned in my first response free markets are not meant to create a solution for problems whose success is not defined by finding the "fair price" for something. In my books, solution that prevents people from being able to obtain/afford healthcare (and lets be clear, no matter how many "inefficiencies" you might eliminate through deregulation, there will always be a segment of the population that cannot afford to pay for healthcare, just like they cannot afford to pay for housing or food) will never be a success.
But this is all a moot discussion. The likelihood of the United States moving further to the left on healthcare is exponentially higher than the likelihood of the industry being deregulated to the point where you scenario starts to be able to realize real benefits. As-such, if a true "free market" healthcare system is not politically palatable for the country, then I think both of us, and the facts, are all in agreement that a single payer or public system would do a much better job than our current "bastardized part-government part-private" system.
You're probably right that a true free market health care system is not politically palatable, just like a true free market in any aspect of the economy is not politically palatable. That doesn't mean free markets don't work; it means they're not tried.
free markets are not meant to create a solution for problems whose success is not defined by finding the "fair price" for something
Your definition of a free market is too narrow. Free markets are applicable in any situation where there are scarce resources that need to be allocated. There may not be a "fair" price for health care, but it is certainly a scarce resource that needs to be allocated. There isn't a "fair" price for groceries, computers, etc., but the free market allocates them.
Sure it is. Consider: it took the Soviet Union more than 70 years to collapse. Someone who looked at the economic numbers of the Soviet Union in the 1920's, or even in the 1930's, might well have thought they were doing great. But they were trying to centrally manage something that's too complex and diverse to be centrally managed, and it caught up with them. Other countries are trying to do the same thing, and it's going to catch up with them as well. Or perhaps I should say "us" since I live in one of the countries (the US) that's doing this.
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-healthcare-systems-in-th... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranki... http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/23/us-usa-healthcare-...