[erterbest]

Isn't, from a macro perspective, 'numbers out of whack' due to a cohort of people without care, absolutely a measure of a broken system?

You may view the system as providing the best care for you, but that does not mean that the system is best in every sense?

[jariel]

If you want to view it that way, fine, but it's far more than just a 'system'.

It's like saying 'transportation' is one key to a healthy 'manufacturing system'.

If you are sick and you can have the choice between going to an American Hospital or a Canadian Hospital ... you go to the American one, because they are better, point blank.

[erterbest]

Sure. If we compare individual hospitals' ability to treat one hypothetical person with the highest quality of service and outcome, you probably are correct.

But my impression is that is like saying that you are a better dad if you spend all your money on one of your kids' Harvard education and let the other one fend for himself or go into debt, when you could've given them both adequate education at a less expensive college?

My position is simply that a health ecosystem where everyone gets adequate care for free or at least without going into crippling debt is preferred over a system where some get lavish care and others none. It's not like there's a thousand people dying of perfectly treatable diseases due to queuing in the Canadian health care system - but there are indeed people dying because they can't access basic care in the American system.

By the way: When is transportation not a key to efficient manufacturing? Do you think that the efficient solution is for factories to make every single part of their product on site? Does it not matter whether spare parts for machinery can be ordered and delivered within 24 hours instead of 24 days? Or did you mean that what I said was obvious, i.e. the American health care system is clearly less efficient for providing solutions to the population than the Canadian, but you want to stress the point that it is possible, in some cases, to get better individual care in an American hospital?