[ganoushoreilly]

It would take a rethinking of how the government would run the medical systems though. For example, the Veterans Administration hospital system is now a mix of Govt. and Referrals to for profit because the Govt. run hospitals have failed to meet standards / needs consistently. The health care has always been deemed pretty subpar / inadequate as well.

I'm not opposed to a government system, but it needs to be a redesign and re-haul of everything we've done so far and the reality is that it's just not likely to happen.

There are some exceptions to quality at the VA, notably when the VA is co-located with a school such as Stanford in Palo Alto. There they often have great medical providers and support.