I would say that most western countries do have both public and private healthcare. I did have private insurance here in Spain and it's nothing like in the US,

I would say that most western countries do have both public and private healthcare. I did have private insurance here in Spain and it's nothing like in the US, as far as I can tell. Service was excelent and I didn't felt everyone was stressed. In france your public insurance allows you to walk in a private clinic or hospital too, as a relative did and they cover her post-cancer treatment better than in the public hospital (by her account at least). So yeah, "free market deregulation" may be an oversimplification but you have a problem in the US that's also far more than just being for-profit. We have for-profit over here and it works. And that includes private & public institution doing medical R&D and selling their products to the national health services and private clinics, like quite a bunch of spanish companies do, for example. I say this becase it weirdly pops as an argument when it's totally unrelated, and it may be only a tiny fraction of the total cost.