With respect, your treatise is heavily skewed toward a familiar anti-government position. So why not examine the French and Swiss healthcare schemes and try to apply the same rhetoric? Even Swiss detractors of their own system are unlikely to agree that the system is bad because so many are at the government teat.

In addition, people might examine formal insurance schemes owned (but not run directly by) government: one accessible example would be the Accident Compensation scheme in NZ. Again not perfect, but it includes tort reform and now is required to cover all predictable future costs for current injuries out of current levies rather than being a "pay as you go" system like Medicare that always ends in huge Ponzi shortfalls. The scheme invests $ needed for future costs and can generate large surpluses when markets are good: rather than being sucked into private pockets, those surpluses can be used to increase services or decrease taxes. For example, bad times revealed shortfalls up to 2009 but this year the scheme generated a $2B surplus. On a population basis, a similar scheme in the US for accident alone would have generated a $250B surplus. Funding all healthcare on the same basis could have yielded a $2T surplus *AFTER* putting aside enough to cover predictable future needs. If you disagree, also look at the Australian compulsory national superannuation scheme: Aussies now have more invested per capita in managed funds than anybody else. This is a recipe for prosperity. Show me the victim, and remind me again why private schemes would have generated a better result for the nation rather than juicy dividends for a few?