There is no "free health care" anywhere. It is either privately financed or publicly financed or both. If you look at the difference in tax rates between countries with mostly publicly financed and privately financed health care, there is your costs. There is no something for nothing.
The U.S. health care system is one of the most expensive, and yet by most measures, is not better than other, cheaper health care programs. Although I hear politicians constantly refer to it as "the best in the world". The facts do not bear this out. One area I do think we are particularly good at is surgical procedures. Other than that, we are middling at best.
Public health care has plenty of flaws, as does private. Both cost way more than they have to due to the influence of special interests. Until treatment is based on science, and public science unfettered from profit, both systems are going to remain flawed and expensive.
Neither one is producing cures for hardly anything. In spite of huge advances in virtually every other field, health care is still in a relative stone age, by comparison.
Just my opinion.
Dan
