I just don't want some things to be completely nationilized. The banks for example. Look how that went for Iceland.
Well they needed to be saved somehow. The fact is in a capitilistic system hte banks act almost like the central planing board in a communist system. Whatever the banks think is profitable gets funded, whatever they don't think is profitable doesn't get funded and dies. The "Too Big To Fail" banks needed to be saved, in order to preserve their funding infrastructure, their funding, and their decision making abilities. Now of course the banks made some bad decisions, but the economy just couldn't get along without them.
Now when it comes to healthcare, there was extensive discusion of this in the "SCOTUS to hear Obamamcare case" thread. So I weill just quote myself from there.
Further more: "The Singapore government spent only 1.3 percent of GDP on healthcare in 2002, whereas the combined public and private expenditure on healthcare amounted to a low 4.3 percent of GDP." That means the private sector expenditure on health care was 3% of GDP, which is 230% higher than the government percentage of GDP, about as free market as Medicare, yeah.
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2008/01/singapores_heal.html
So if Forbes doesn't convince me a libertarian think tank will?
I'll admit that my numbers before were outdated but this guy is just pulling stuff out of his ass and it does not correlate to what the WHO found at the same time. Look here:
http://apps.who.int/ghodata/
Click Health Systems -> Health Financing -> Health Expenditure Ratios
Wonderful data from all over for 2009. Scroll down to Singapore. Government expenditures were 41.5%. So they do win the prize for having one of the few systems in the world with lower government share then the US. But it's not like the government isn't the major player here.
Yeah didn't consider the Forbes-Libertarian connection 
, hey it the first good article in the google search don't kill me for it.
The guy's data is form 2002, so obviously some things have changed. What I don't know what is though is why Singaporeans get more healthcare form the Gov now then 2002, as their standard of living increased you would have expected them to receive more private care, all else equal. The only thing I can think of is an increase in treatments covered, expanded coverage of the population, increased costs in the Gov healthcare sector vs. the private healthcare sector, and increases in subsides of already covered treatments to the already covered population.
And then consider what you get in the "private" funding. It's mandatory contributions to a government administered account. The government dictates the prices that you pay with "your" money. The government provides a backstop for you if your account runs dry. And the government plays a key role in deciding whether or not you should get expensive treatments. Patient initiative never even enters into the decision making process. The only part that is truly out of pocket is the co-pay. We have co-pays here in the US.
Well yeah it is a difined contribution plan to a government account, but thats only to force you to save enough many so you don't need insurance and can see the price of what you are using and try to save money on things you don't really need. The Singaporean government issues prices for government services, which forces the private sector to compete in order to do it at lower cost. They really set a benchmark, because if I can get my medication for 500 from the gov, why go to a private sector provider for 600? I think that thing about expensive treatments is true of your healthsavings account, as well as any other government provided care. Of course if you pay out of pocket for the expensive care you can get it. Patient initiative influences the decision making process of individuals who fund their health savings accounts from their own money, so they try to avoid treatments that don't over a good cost-benefit ratio in order to save money. Yeah everyone who has subsidized care doesn't get to choose. Co-pays and as I mentioned before expensive treatments are out of pocket.
But this is away from the central point which is that Singapore has some very, very crucial differences from everywhere else that drives it's success. It's a country that is vastly wealthier then it's surroundings and can afford to hire manpower for a pittance. They can hire however much migrant labor they need for their economy. They can get doctors from abroad because the low wages of the poor keep the cost of living down for the rich. It's a place where 15% of the households are millionaires but they still have a reputation for low labor costs. If you wanted to emulate Singapore you aren't just going to need to set up health savings accounts, you'd need to completely redevelop American society. You'd need to kick out all the high wage American workers and import a bunch of low wage workers from elsewhere. You'd need to shed the rural parts of the country in the name of efficiency and just hold onto places like New York, the Bay Area, etc. Then attract some highly paid Europeans and Canadians with all the cheap labor they could want. It's not a good model for our country. You might as well ask why we can't emulate the cheap costs of Singapore's portside loading and unloading facilities.
If you want the personal responsibility with a government backstop model without the cheap labor then you are looking at Switzerland or the Netherlands or (partially) Germany.
Actually it appears that most of Singapore's cheap labour in the healthcare sector are sourced domesticly. There are horror stores apperantly.
http://forums.salary.sg/income-jobs/793-how-life-doctor-singapore.html
The pay is pretty much the same for low-level doctors as in the West, but they work a ridiculious amount of hours. Read the big post in the first thread, he explains it pretty well. As you will see throughout the rest of the thread, many of the higher level doctors are paid either the same or better. The reason costs are so low is that
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_University_of_Singapore, National University of Singapore forces students to either work for the healthcare system for 5 years, or pay a huge sum of money in order to be able to go get any other job. So this bonded labour is avalible at a very low cost, relative to other doctors pay, to the system. Since they make up the bulk of the work force, and are unable to bargin or leave, they lower wages for every other relativly unskilled doctor. Its like the situation in the late Roman Empire where the masses of slaves lowered the wages of poor free men due to their low cost over time. It is actully like slavery, in that it is forced labor.
And he isn't lying the government website says it too.
http://www.nus.edu.sg/registrar/edu/UG/fees.html
You know if having doctors work slave's hours I don't think I want healthcare as cheap and as good as Singapore. Its all ways too good to be true 
. Why don't any of the proponents of single payer bring this up when conservetives raise the Singaporean health care system as a counter example 
?
Also i apoligize for the disparaging tone some of my posts had, you are clearly very inteligent. If anything appears condescending here, it was not intended and I apoligize.
Spoilered because it is gigantic. Also later on in that thread Maniac pointed out that interns do pretty much the same here, and it is also a prerequisite to getting a good job in healthcare.
When it comes to other things, my view is mostly towards an expansion of Government's role, but not necessarily through government actors. In other words, if the government can pay private individuals to do it better than they can, then they should do so.
In terms of my list of demands, I would say it is quite long, and multifaceted.
1) 0% corporate tax rate. It all goes to people in the end. By taxing the corporation you are taxing all of the members of the corporation. I would rather just see this replaced by increased individual taxes, particularly on higher earners, as they hae enough already and would benefit the most from the tax cuts.
2) reform tax code to eliminate ever deduction but charitable giving. I don't see a justification for anything else. 3) Collage for everyone. It is always a good thing to educate your population. People with collage degrees make a lot more money over the course of their life than those without them. This would be paid for through yet more tax hikes.
4) Modeling the public school system on Finland. Thats it, I would get some guys form the Finnish government over here and just have them redo the entire thing. Ya know, because Finland has come in first in most of those educational polls for a long time now.
5) Public private partner ships for infrastructure, so it can get done better and faster.
6) More spending on infrastructure. The highways system gave back 6$ for every 1$ spend over 40 years (
http://www.publicpurpose.com/freeway1.htm). A system of High Speed Trains would have the same effect. Also more investment is needed in repairing and replacing existing part sof the highways system. Also some of the bridges here in NYC are falling apart, we need some new ones.
7)More money to Nasa, Alway is right, it does pay for itself.
More public transportation in all major cities, in order to increase effeciency, ease traffic, and further encourage urbanization.
9) Reform the tax code to account for costs of living, 250,000$ goes
a lot farther in alabama than NYC. Rural residents are effectively getting a tax break, courtesy of the US governemnt. Eventhough they are less productive and less innovative than people living in cities.
10) Have school funding be paid for through federal or state taxes, because poor nieghborhoods alwasy end up with shitty schools because they can only afford shit. While the public school in my nieghborhood is almost as good as a bellow average private school.
11) Guarented housing for everyone, helps poor people to bounce back when they have a safe place to go at night. Also stops homeless people from begging for food and such.
Well that's a long enough list for now.
Edit: that
face is an 8 )
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