> Also, I don't want to live in a place where the availability of a treatment is determined by some government committee that determines what the value of a mon

> Also, I don't want to live in a place where the availability of a treatment is determined by some government committee that determines what the value of a month of my life is. This is Sarah Palin's "Death Panel" argument, and it's a weak one. If you have a fixed healthcare budget you need to decide how to spend it. The most sensible way to do that is to determine which treatments provide how many years additional quality of life, and pay for the treatments that provide the greatest benefit. You could debate the nitty gritty of how those calculations are made, and sure, there are ehtical quandries in there. It's a tough problem and sometimes mistakes are made. But that's not what you're doing. What you're doing is spreading FUD. You could suggest that health insurance is the proper way to run a healthcare system. I'd disagree with you, based on the fact that Britain's NHS covers its entire populace, supporting a higher life expectancy than the US, and costs less PER CAPITA (not per patient) than the US Medicare system that only pays for a small percentage. What's more, if you want to skip the waiting list for a replacement hip (the elderly score less well under the QUALY system) then you always have the option of paying for health insurance, or paying for the treatment directly. What's more UK health insurance is cheaper than US health insurance, because the health system isn't filled to the brim with moral hazards inflating prices.