>Of course, in my view, the best solution is to detach health coverage from employment.
>
>And attach it to what? The government? Why? Because they have done such a great job of running other things like the postal service?

Now you made me go over my years in the US, and recount the cases of good and bad service. And guess what, the government (with exception of the INS or what's it called this week, which was IMO intentionally made bad and slow) is better. With corporations, the service was generally too complicated, with hours spent on the phone to get anything, with clerical errors which would take more phone calls to fix (including, but not limited to, double or fictional billing, not delivering, trying to overcharge, inventing no-time-to-shop-around situations while offering their buddy's services, taking 15 days to do what you do in 5 minutes here, etc, all the way to downright scams). The government (at all levels) was generally taking its time but no more than that - and what money it was supposed to deliver would inevitably come, within a few days; whatever paperwork there was (and there could be less, I agree) would come through within the advertised time - mostly weeks, but then I didn't have to move my ass off my chair for that, nor to make any phone calls (compared with what you got here, where one still has to go to three windows for one paper that's required for the fourth window).

In case of health insurance, I'm not suggesting that the state (at any level) would necessarily do a good job - most likely, it would be sabotaged by various interests (like GW2B's law on Medicare schedule E or something such, where the fund was forbidden to negotiate a price when buying drugs), and exemplarily botched. Even so, I have found some data about their overhead - in case of Medicare/aid, it's about 3%; in case of for-profit insurances, 25-30%. Hey, the money for all that advertising and bribes has to come from somewhere, and they still have to turn a profit to look good on Walmart Street.

For the first two years, when we did have health insurance, it saved us a total of about $12, and cost us about $400 on stuff we still had to pay (over the unknown amount that employer paid, plus about $40 I added monhtly), that weren't covered. Next year, we had a cost of about $120 - discount price for the uninsured, costs $160 otherwise, as a matter of policy of the clinic.

I'd like to see a system of health care, organized by the community at any level, even if it's through its government, as a non-profit, running at cost price, and not as a retail outlet for the pharmaceuticals. There's something deeply wrong when they make money from one's illness, and have a financial incentive to grow.