| > Can you elaborate on why Tricare and the VA aren't government run healthcare They are in the technical sense that the US govt "runs it". They are not socialized medicine as every Western country has implemented. They hardly have the scale, participation or political pull. > I define government run healthcare as healthcare that is run by the government. This is a bit naive, because the VA and DoD have a strong vested interests in short term solutions to keep soldiers going and back on the field. Also, many of the VA's problems stem from the fact that only a small % of Americans actually use the VA and care about its performance. So politically, it's hardly something that anyone focuses on, despite many promises to the contrary. > experience from the government run Post Office The post office is actually really efficient and is an example of a very well run government service. They're on par with any private company, easily, in both price and service. If anything, cuts to the post office have hurt it more than any operational problems or mismanagement. > The point is that many Americans have relatively little faith in the government to design a good system This is because many Americans actively vote against their best interest and elect politicians whose sole purpose is to hamstring the government from doing anything effectively. It's the classic conservative self fulfilling prophecy: cripple the government, point to the fact that the "government doesn't work", then privatize and reap the rewards. It's just a political game to make rich voters richer. |