>Last I checked no one from America is telling the UK how to run their health care. Yet people around the world seem to feel its their duty to tell the US how to run ours.
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>That may be how you see it. Others may see that people like you slam foreign systems and then make complaints like this if somebody asks for substantiation.

I don't care for any public system of care. I understand their flaws and do not want them enacted here. There are better ways.

>You're not seriously bringing up medical tourism in as a did a America's health care are you? Want to take a guess at the numbers who come here vs those that go elsewhere?
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>The medical tourism point was about COST. You ignored that and converted it to numbers crossing borders to receive first world care. You can be sure that few if any people in the target medical tourism countries cross to the US to receive the same procedure at 400% of the cost. Wealthy people may well cross to Seattle or LA or whatever to attend a centre of excellence for special care, something you *definitely* want to preserve and encourage, but that does not mean that an ordinary hip replacement needs to cost 400% as much. We're talking orthopedics, general surgery procedures. Bread and butter stuff that adds up to billions of $ of first world healthcare expense.

So you only want COST to be analyzed? What about the COST to one's quality of life having to wait for 18 moths for said hip replacement surgery? Those who come to America, BY CHOICE, and pay for the surgery right away are included in those medical tourism numbers as well. This says nothing of the numbers of expectant mothers who are transported here by a Canadian system which cannot afford beds for them to have their babies. What does that COST? One of my main contentions is cost, however, I'm more concerned with the exploding costs related to government provided care, and the inability to budget for it. Thus requiring rationing, lack of technology, restricting prescriptions and of course tax hikes. There is a better way.

>You have once again distorted my argument. I have never claimed that the existing system has "all the merit".
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>But you only consider PROBLEMS in other systems. You've said that seven times now. Every time I say other systems have merits too, you ignore that and convert discussion to your perceived PROBLEMS. Example: cost. I challenge you to respond to cost without converting it to a complaint about something else. The home page of that http://www.commonwealthfund.org/ site is dedicated to this topic at the moment if you want some sources.

I reject your challenge because you only focus on the monetary cost of the care, not the cost of those systems. You'll mention the cost of a procedure or the high cost of American care, but you refuse to acknowledge the US government's role in those costs through regulation, judiciary abuse, tax policy, medicare/medicaid payment schedules, etc. You do not look at the cost of people's suffering under draconian systems which prevent their citizens from achieving the best care because of cost. You do not examine the cost of one's freedom with the loss of control over something as personal as one's health care. I've already stated that the American system costs too much.

There is a better way, and more government is not that way. It will compound the problems, not just for America, but for all those medical tourists who will no longer have the US as a choice.