1) Hospital costs are so high because they have to treat all comers; in effect those who can pay subsidize those who can’t. Most hospitals are currently loosing money, except specality hospitals (ortho, heart) which can exclued the non-payers. Furthermore, as an MD who take call at a general hospital, I too, have to see whomever walks thru the ER doors and needs my service, without regard to getting paid.
2) Government run medicine in the US can currently be seen in any VA. They are frankly horror stories. Think of the US Postal Service at its most dysfunctional. Take a look at the Times of London; pretty much they have a weekly National Health Service horror story. My recent NHS favorite is saving money by turning sheets over rather than changing them for new patients. This is a typical, not exceptional story.
3) The actress who just died in Canada would not have died in the US. Her epidural hematoma was recoginzed (it’s an easy diagnosis), but no chopper. Choppers are deemed cost ineffective, like new hips in oldsters. So a few die or are crippled, the system doesn’t care. No one is responsible in a State or VA system, rather the system is God-like and we mortals simply suffer the slings and arrows.
