@MontereyJack,
MontereyJack wrote:
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Because the government-run healthcare programs in the entire rest of the First World uniformly have better healthcare metrics, cover everyone, and cost about half what the antiquated inefficient vastly overpricedprivate healthcare system we have had.
Governments are notoriously obscure in their accounting and appropriations for various programs, putting the real costs for administration, security, legal matters, physical plant and equipment, etc. in separate accounts. There are no real cost comparison that confirm MJs unfounded assertion.
The track record for government-produced commodities and consumer goods & services is dismal compared to free market capitalist systems. Just prior to the reunification of Germany, the Eastern GDR socialist system produced the Trabant, a tiny automobile with a plastic body and a two cycle reciprocating engine - a highly polluting version of a primitive lawn mower. West Germany produced Mercedes Benz, BMWs and Audis.
Survival rates for patients diagnosed with most serious diseases in the government operated systems in the UK and Canada are significantly lower than in the United States. Most innovations in medical diagnosis, treatment systems and medicines occur in the United States.
Socialism actively discourages innovation in the means of production, though it does a pretty good job discouraging badly needed economic activity, even in cases of obvious need -- as was demonstrated by the now defunct Socialist governments of the former Soviet Empire and China and is currently demonstrated in Cuba and Venezuela.
