Having health insurance is like paying a mechanic hundreds of dollars a month to belong to their 'service club' in case your car breaks down and then when your car does break down they refuse to fix it and then charge you more per month to belong to the club. Surely there are enough varied examples of alternatives that we can hash together something better; just about anything would be at this point. We have the same situation in health care that we had when we finally nationalized the fire department; fire companies would literally stand outside your house and haggle the price with you while your stuff burned. We as a nation realized that was really bad for us as a people and did something about it. I wonder how much longer it's going to take us to come to our senses in regards to medicine.

Where do you think the money comes from? It doesn't just materialize right there in the white house. It comes out of our taxes. If the government is maintaining a public health care system, then they have to charge us extra taxes to pay for it. It's basically government-enforced health insurance.

Public health care costs everybody money. It's more about saving labor by keeping the lower-class workforce healthy. It might save you money in the long run, it might not. It's an investment.

The first option is pretty much a fantasy. It just doesn't happen. A lot of people have insurance. Those that do have to jump through hoops and go through middlemen as much as in the second option. Those that don't pretty much can't afford medical care anyway.

You're right in that national healthcare would be like socialized insurance. The difference is that it wouldn't be profit-driven; the government wouldn't be looking to skim off the top and provide as little actual service as possible, so all the "insurance payments" that go in would come out as doctor's salaries. I mean, in theory, of course; social security was supposed to be kinda like that too.

yup, in addition to that, like other systems your income influences how much is taxed. Rich give more then the poor, because they have more to give.

If only that actually worked all the way up through the income column instead of stopping at the income level where people have enough money to control lobbyists and by extension politicians.

Anyways, we know nationwide government health care works because it works in every industrialized country that bothers with it. At this point its less about taking a risk and more about getting insurance companies to let go of their profits.

Yeah, these days most people buy medical insurance or get insurance from the company that they work for, and might get that supplemented with government funding. But just because people don't do it doesn't mean that the option to pay straight up cash isn't still there. I'm sure that a lot of rich people do it. And you might have enough money to do it too, if you stop paying for medical insurance long enough. :p

I suppose you have a point about the government not being like an insurance company. However, it worries me that an organization like the government, without the potential for profit, would not have much incentive to do a good job as opposed to a crappy job. An organization that profits can actually pass the incentives down to its employees, whereas the government is working under a tight, rigid budget with little room for promotions and raises.

That's entirely subjective and unverifiable.

Fine. We know that in every country with nationalized health care more people per capita get competent healthcare. Is it always as good as its possible to get in America; well no. Conversely only a very small percentage of people actually get this super health care because its prohibitively expensive. (I personally went to the ER and got nothing but a CT, some IV vitamins, an X-ray, and talk with a psychiatrist and the bill came to over $6000. I'm fighting that one as its basically the same amount as one years tuition and I was only there for like 4 hours.) By any objective measurement significantly more people getting adequate health care is significantly better then a select few getting exceptional health care.

Well, I don't know the technicalities of our system (Canada, btw), but I can say I'm really glad I wasn't billed $6,000 the couple of times I've had x-rays done. O.o

But see you might have had to wait a few weeks to go get those x-rays done, which is clearly much less convenient than getting them done now, and then spending the next several months / years working to pay off your bill.

Well, no, I prefer waiting. And I only waited about a week. Sure, it's a bitch to spend 6 hours in the waiting room, but if my family were billed with $6,000, we'd be really, really screwed. And like... I've been to the hospital so many times for the most random problems. It would add up.

Suppose I was a college student living on my own (which isn't too far off...) I couldn't afford to pay each time I visit a hospital.

It's more of a problem if you have a serious medical problem, but then they're more likely to speed you through the process. (Tip: if you don't want to wait too long, complain about chest or heart pains >_>; )

Edit: I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic or not. Either way here's my reply :P