The other Awards Obama will will this year...

[Jester]

So, are we talking about Canada? Britain? France? Where is this Nirvana of health care where they do everything better and cheaper, and where the system breaks even?

What is "breaks even"? Does the miltary "break even"? Do roads "break even"? The government collects X taxes, and spends Y on expenses. Does the Canadian government break even? Federally, it does. (Some provinces do, some don't, and some health care funding comes from them.) So, does that mean Canadian Health Care breaks even? That question doesn't even make sense. It's a public good.

Where they don't put people on waiting lists for months or years.

If you have non-essential treatment, you get put on a waiting list. For major (non-essential) surgeries, months is probable, years is not probable. If you need *essential* treatment, where urgency is an issue, you get moved to the front of the list and get treatment almost immediately. Are you really so opposed to anyone, at any time, waiting for any treatment?

Where people have a choice in what care they get, but then they let the government pay for it?

There are countries where you can pay for an "upgrade" to snazzier conditions. But, by and large, the nature of a public system is that everyone gets roughly the same level of treatment, so no, you don't get a total range of choice in your care. TANSTAAFL.

Where they treat patients with equality, rather than judging their potential contribution to society.

I know this whole line of reasoning is a fun piece of rightist paranoia with a splash of sci-fi dystopia, but is there actually a real example of a socialized medical system that treats patients according to their "potential contribution to society?" If so, I've never heard of it. In Canada, you get treatment according to how much you need treatment. Nobody asks about your "contribution."

Where people are not deathly afraid of being put into the hospital for fear of lethal staph infections?

Because that totally doesn't happen in private hospitals. MRSA is very ideologically discriminating.

One might point out that the huge scare about MRSA in British hospitals was all the result of some very poor testing by a total incompetent. The actual rates are much lower - although this remains a major problem in *all* systems, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with how the hospitals are funded. So, a red herring.

In sum, there ain't no Utopia (Eutopia?), not on this planet. (Maybe on Saturn.) But if that's what you're arguing against, you're up against a strawman. Nobody is proposing any system to solve all ills, maximize all values. You don't get maximum choices, maximum care, maximum coverage, maximum safety, maximum outcomes, with minimum cost, minimum hassle, minimum unfairness, minimum delay, minimum governmental intrusion, zero triage, and no screwups, ever. But some systems work a heck of a lot better than others.

-Jester