[andriesm]

Exactly. Most gov healthcare result in rationing an long wait times and sucks up massive amounts of resources.

We need better private solutions. We need yelp for medical comparative price shopping, with consumer and expert reviews.

Really well executed gov care can be OK but is rare and usually does nor stay good long term.

The current "free market" in healthcare is completely hamstrung by regulation and unspoken anti-competitve practices and broken intermediation via medical aid funds and gov medicare and other programs.

[vidarh]

> Most gov healthcare result in rationing an long wait times

Most private health care avoid visible rationing by letting people pay to skip ahead in the queue based on economic means instead of urgency and clinical need. That the rationing and queuing isn't visible doesn't mean it's not there. Only that in the US people sit at home wondering how to afford treatment instead of wait in line based on triage based on urgency.

So yes, the US system is superior if you're one of the lucky ones that can afford to pay your way past those who need treatment more than you.

> and sucks up massive amounts of resources.

US healthcare is vastly more expensive for the users than most socialised options..

[walterbell]

Why not allow queue jump payments in socialised care, to subsidise the rest of the queue?

[vidarh]

Effectively many countries do allow this to some extent.

E.g. a significant portion of private care in the UK is provided in NHS hospitals by NHS staff either outside of their normal shifts arranged by private companies who pay the NHS for access to operating theatres and the like, and by NHS trusts themselves who are allowed to provide private services on top of their socialised care.

A market exception is Norway, which as one of very few countries have very strict limitations on what private services can be provided at all on the basis of an argument that as long as healthcare resources are limited (e.g. there is a practical cap on number of doctors - train too many and they don't get enough experience on real cases to gain the necessary skills), it is seen as immoral to allow people to queue jump.

[barrkel]

All healthcare involves "rationing"; that's what we call scarce resources divided out along some kind of priority basis.

"Free market" healthcare is "rationed" on the basis of ability to pay.

[gambiting]

>> We need yelp for medical comparative price shopping, with consumer and expert reviews.

I'm sorry, this is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. What you need is being able to go to any doctor, any hospital, at any time, and knowing you won't pay for it at all, ever, as it is in many countries around the world. Not competitive comparative pricing. If you are in pain you don't want to be shopping around for a good price.