[enraged_camel]

>>Guess what, private insurance companies will also negotiate prices.

They negotiate prices based on the size of the pool. This is why if you are a small business the rates you will get will be worse than if you were a large enterprise.

With socialized healthcare, the pool is the entire citizenry, which is what gives the government substantial leverage when negotiating.

[exodus_de]

The German government doesn't negotiate anything. They set prices, period. Set them too low and you create shortages. Guess what the German healthcare system has, it's a shortage of doctors, especially specialists. German doctors are leaving for greener pastures, like Switzerland. They are replaced by doctors from Eastern Europe. Quality suffers. Waiting times are high. Most Germans are too uninformed or arrogant to admit it (especially to Americans) but the system sucks.

That's not to say the American system is good, but I can't stand all this talk about how socialized healthcare is so great. It isn't. A lot of what people are calling "socialized" systems are actually private systems with a compulsion to purchase insurance, for example Switzerland, Netherlands, Australia. Even Germany technically has a dual system (public and private) but only the top earners are allowed to go private.

[germanier]

> The German government doesn't negotiate anything. They set prices, period

Incorrect. In the public system, the fees are negotiated between the GKV Spitzenverband (federal association of public health insurers) and the KBV (federal association of public doctors).

Germany still is in the top group regarding quality of care indicators.

[incompatible]

Australia doesn't have any compulsion to purchase insurance. It's perfectly normal to skip it and receive treatment on Medicare. However, if you don't have private insurance, and have a relatively high income, you pay a tax surcharge.

[refurb]

You have a point. There are a lot of people comparing the worst parts of the US system with the best parts of the single payer systems.

As a Canadian, I will say there are a lot of people dissatisfied with the Canadian system. Likely to a lesser degree than in the US, but the system is far from perfect.

[Thlom]

Health care can never be perfect unless you (personally or government) are willing to pay an indefinite amount of money towards it. The positive with an imperfect socialized system is that it's under democratic control. In other words society decides what to prioritize.