Re: US healthcare system
private insurance is way too expensive.
think of private healthcare third world countries like India and Pakistan. Why is it that they can give decent healthcare, readily available, for much cheaper to a large segment of the population? What is affordable in Pakistan for 20% of the population would probably be affordable to 90% in US and UK. All done in the private sector. Even if you take into account higher cost of living and higher running expenses medicine is too expensive in US and even more expensive in the UK.
Whats the point of a safety net when for anything more serious than the sniffles you have to wait months or even years? There are people who are now going from UK to good hospitals in India because wait times on NHS are too long. Even with the air ticket, and the relatively expensive Indian hospitals catering to such people, that is cheaper than getting it done through private insurance or paying yourself in the UK. And these are the people who can afford the airline ticket, the bottom of the barrel poor and the lower middle class still doesnt have any options.
when the government gets involved as a consumer, competition suffers. hospitals, if allowed to charge what they want to a faceless beureaucracy, will charge what they want to a faceless beureucracy and there is no incentive to lower prices in order to capture greater market share. As a result those who want to pay for themselves will get jacked, because the costs will shoot up. And thats basically your middle class, the majority of people in most socieities.
I think Pakistan has accidentally stumbled on a good model, through complete government neglect. Less income people get less quality healthcare, and rich folk get to go abroad to get their foreign doctors, but the burgeoning middle class gets quality healthcare that is better and more easily accessible than the healthcare they would be able to afford in the UK.
Its not as if the poor (not homeless-poor but working poor) have no recourse. Because of deregulation (and laxity in enforcement of regulations) it is easier for G.P. doctors to open up their little corner clinics, not counting the homeopaths and the hakeems and the absolute quacks (who have a market even in UK). Worst case you have a set of government run hospitals. If you must have government involvement, limit it to a set of government managed hospitals, without intruding one bit on the private sector.
Finally lets call universal healthcare what it is: charity. Charity, in my view, should be done privately. Sure encourage people to open up private charitable healthcare institutions, such as Shaukat Khanum, SIUT etc. The govt should give such places free land, and help them in any way possible. That results in higher quality care instead of a government imposed, managed, and screwed up (in the UK) system of universal healthcare.