O.K., Rick, here's my question for you:
Why do you think the U.S. experience would be substantially different from all the other countries that have some form of Universal Health Care? What I mean is, every country that has it spends less on health care than we do, and gets better results. But you keep saying that if we had it, we would spend more than we do now (15% of our GDP!!!) and the quality would go down. Do you think Americans are less competent than Dutch or Australian people?
First off, you have to decide who is going to receive coverage. If you say everyone, just how many everyone's is there? I can see folks crossing the borders by the millions. I don't believe we are less competent, I believe the Dutch or Australians know how many folks are in their country and what their initial expenses will be.
In a nut shell, the difference between us and other countries is, they have sovereign borders and we do not.