Communism is flawed in theory because it relies on people not acting in their own personal interests, which is not a declared assumption (because it would be so

Communism is flawed in theory because it relies on people not acting in their own personal interests, which is not a declared assumption (because it would be so ridiculous). The free market you often hear about is sound in theory when it makes clear assumptions about the government, but those assumptions are idealistic because they require government officials to not be persuaded by rent-seekers. But you've taken this way off topic to be honest, because I am not advocating the ultra-pure free market ideal. I am advocating scaling back and reducing the scope of our excessive USDA/FDA (which would cause the same problems in a universal healthcare system regardless), reducing IP protections (same problems regardless of universal healthcare system), making it easier to become a doctor (also a problem regardless of whether we have universal healthcare) and getting rid of our existing lop-sided "universal" healthcare systems which would be irrelevant in a universal health-care system. To my original point, we have the most government distorted healthcare market in the world so it really should not be so surprising that our system is the worst per dollar. You can't just add another "universal healthcare program" and expect all of the problems to go away -- there's a lot of cleanup to do. And even after that cleanup, I think it would be silly to resign ourselves to the mediocrity of other systems instead of seeking progress.