There are different ways to provide universal health care. Canada, for example, has a single-payer system in which most medical practices are private but they b

There are different ways to provide universal health care. Canada, for example, has a single-payer system in which most medical practices are private but they bill the public insurer. The system isn't perfect, obviously, but it is quite efficient at allocating money to actual health care rather than administrative overhead. Whole categories of business expenses (including, ahem, profits) just go away. On the other hand, Britain has a fully nationalized system in which doctors are public employees, and their system is even more efficient than the Canadian system. In fact, across OECD countries, the overall efficiency of the health care system seems to be positively correlated with the extent to which the government directly controls it. In the US, the public parts of the health care system are overall much more efficient at allocating resources to care than the private parts. Sidenote: I will pause here to draw a distinction between allocative efficiency, or the extent to which a system allocates capital where it will maximize ROI, and what we might call outcome efficiency, or the extent to which a system allocates resources where they will maximize effectiveness. Market based systems are better at allocative efficiency, but the evidence is that they are much worse at outcome efficiency. Market-based health care is great business, but it leaves far too many people under- and uninsured. This is because the principal economic imperative for a for-profit insurer is to collect premiums but not pay out benefits.