The health systems in Europe are not radically different from the US system. The efficiencies of each are difficult to quantify without context. For example, the US invents most of the drugs and medical technology used by the world. Would this still happen if there was more invasive regulation? We can't know.
Besides all of this, think of every other area of the market where the government insinuates itself. Are public schools better than private schools? Almost never. Is the US postal system better than FedEx? Of course not. The government is not a commercial entity. The incentives and influences on it are not conducive to producing quality products at good prices.
Until recently. This means that all people can obtain health care regardless of their ability to pay, and that the system is flexible enough to continue to experiment with the ideal implementation.
Are public schools better than private schools?
Public schools are exactly 100% better than private schools for students who can't afford to attend private schools.
Is the US postal system better than FedEx?
They are if you want to get a letter delivered anywhere in the world cheaply.
You have made a lot of good arguments for socializing care here.
2. Your argument implies that there wouldn't be low cost schools in the absence of public schools. The evidence is overwhelming that the opposite is true.
3. I live in Panama. When I need something mailed here I use FedEx or DHL. The USPS is unreliable and takes far too long. If there weren't laws against private first class mail in the US they'd be undercut in that market as well.
Firstly, diagnostic care is often privately managed throughout the provinces, so if you don't want to wait, you can often pay to expedite. It's about $900 for a joint MRI.
Secondly, if you really need an MRI for a critical diagnosis, as I once did in 2012 as a hospital inpatient, I got it within 2 days.
Canada's health system is a point of national pride.
Having lived through the Ontario cuts in health care in the 90s ("the Harris common sense revolution"), I don't really think political reps Federally or Provincially had any say on quality of care or what hospitals we got, it was all redesigned top down (not all that different from an HMO really, in my experience). Did care access and waits times suffer at the time? Yes. Still wouldn't trade it for a private system.
The difference in access and amount of supply between a rural market and a city in Canada is not too different than in the US. There's a lot of land mass to cover in either country if you're not in a major population centre.
The Canadian system blows away the US system by an order of magnitude, IMO, in terms of what really matters - access and outcomes. Obamacare made the US a bit better, but that's not a tall order.
- Severe pneumonia (1 day in emerg, 9 days in ICU followed by 8 in an inpatient ward)
- Total pericariectomy (2 days in postop ICU, 3 days in ward)
Among other stays/issues prior to these.
The latter surgery was the culmination of outpatient medical care over 3 years with multiple specialists (cardiologist, internist, and cardiac surgeon), along with multiple CT, MRI, cardiac catheterization, countless blood tests, many of which were sent to Winnipeg (the equivalent of the CDC) for rare disease scanning, and over a dozen echocardiograms ... none of which I had to wait for longer than a day or two ... And none of which I had to pay for (just my medication through private insurance). In fairness the surgery itself wasn't critical, so I waited 6 months. They were willing to expedite if my condition deteriorated (it didn't). And after regular cardiologist visits , after I was stable, it could take 8-10 months. If I had an issue they'd expedite me in though.
I am not saying the Canadian system is ideal. Just that it is a reasonably functioning system.
There are some cases where it is both very frustrating and inspiring. I have a dear friend who has a child with a congenital heart defect due to an extremely rare genetic connective issue disorder that is similar (but different) to Marfan syndrome. The Canadian system has been fantastic to senior levels of provincial administration in managing this case, involving international hospitals, breeding zebrafish to replicate the specific mutation, working to manage the treatment of this complex child who is close to turning 5 but likely would have died in the first few weeks after birth in another era.
Keeping this child alive (he is in and out of the hospital about 50%) has easily cost a tremendous amount of public money, but the insurance system risk pool is designed to handle these sorts of outlier cases to ensure future cases can benefit and that this child can have (mostly) a good life in between and during hospital stays. This child gets world class care and has been kept alive due to the system mostly working.
That's the good part. The bad part is that managing complex care in general is a mess as in many health systems, making it a full time job for at least one parent to juggle the various specialists, appointments, tests, medications, history, etc... Which is difficult if you're a single parent. It's almost easier to go on welfare than to work if you are a parent to a critically ill child. So you can get nursing staff to help at home but it's debatable what is covered and what is not, medical expense deductions have some arcane regs like you can't expense a trip under 40km, yet this child has on average 280 trips to the hospital or a clinic a year... Adding up to a lot of expense. Some things like specialized child formula weren't covered by health insurance either until recently (which can cost upwards of $1400 monthly, really sucks when your child can't eat anything due to esophageal issues and has a G-tube and needs this formula to stay alive..)
So, not ideal... But Is this all socialized medicine ills? Sort of I guess? I can see the same problems in a private system.