I think it's ok-ish to make that tradeoff (the one the Swiss make). You really can't have everyone see the best doctors without the atrocious wait times of the

I think it's ok-ish to make that tradeoff (the one the Swiss make). You really can't have everyone see the best doctors without the atrocious wait times of the Canadian and British systems. You could have a lottery system in place of paying for healthcare to distribute available healthcare to people, but I think most would agree it's fairer to just sell healthcare. Your other option is spending maybe twice or thrice what Canada spends and having that many times more doctors on staff to keep wait times low. But I have a feeling it will work the same as widening roads - the wider the road, the more cars drive on it and the congestion doesn't improve; similarly I expect wait times to remain high even if you have one doctor per (say) 100 people, as long as everything is completely free. I agree that it feels cruel to tell people "You must pay this much money for that amount/quality of healthcare", but I don't see any other working system. Maybe if you keep the price affordably low and give additional subsidies to the poorest individuals. As long as people have to pay, even if it's within their means, they'll try to be intelligent with going to the doctor. I'm also a bit surprised they didn't also look at the Japanese system. I've heard it's good and the life expectancy figures match. However, I admit I haven't researched it in any detail.