For those of you who argue how much more efficient the management of public vs private care is or would be, my understanding is that management costs/total budget of Medicare is less than that of Kaiser.

Maybe you should read up on Gammon and his "law".

"It isn't your personal experience that is relevant, but how much in the way of resources go into administration vs. actually providing the service in question."

E.g. Gammon distinguishes betwen administration and bureaucracy, a distinction you seem not aware of. I actually am not all that impressed with the distinction, since it amounts to describing "good bureaucracy vs bad bureaucracy", and by giving the good a different name, it allows for a clean, simplistic assualt on bureacracy.

The "law" also doesn't seem very impressive. It amounts to an ideological bumber sticker rather than any serious description of a regularity in the administration of large organizations. It was based on one study, and, after reading Gammon's own desciption of the study, seems very focused on extracting the conclusions that he probably supported to begin with.

I know it is a "dismal" science, but that doesnt mean it need be done in a dismal manner. "Laws", in the sciences, are regularities that always hold, not ideological nostrums that can be extracted from single studies and then applied whenever and wherever one wants to make a political point.

Nor do I see how it is specific to government bureaucracies, and not private ones - which was my basic point.

As to the meaning of "free at the point of service" I dont understand what kind of convulted point you are trying to make. "Free at the point of service" does not mean "free" (why do I have to repeat this?) - so it doesnt preclude secondary or tertiary costs or anything else,,,,obviously. It means that if you are sick or injured, you get treated, period - and your ability to pay, at the moment, is simply not an issue.

"if you are going to make rationing of health care a political issue, do you really want somebody like Bush and Cheney makes those decisions?"

Of course not. They would probably support a system in which rationing is tied to one's wealth.

The old saw about government bureaucracy being bad, and private buraucracy being good just doesnt accord well with experience.

Actually you need to read up on Gammon's Law. That law applies pretty much to government run/protected bureaucracies. It isn't your personal experience that is relevant, but how much in the way of resources go into administration vs. actually providing the service in question.

As to Steve's comments about what is "free". I think most people understand perfectly well that there isn't anything that is "free". The term is used to mean free at the point of service, and that is a very good thing, for it allows health care to be accessible when needed, irresepctive of the transitory ability to pay.

It isn't even free at the point of service. All those services have costs and they are paid for one way or the other. It isn't free to certain individuals either since it could mean a variety of secondary and tertiary effects such as higher prices for other goods, longer wait times, etc.

And I think that most people also understand the notion of rationing - and how prices ration in a market system. If health care is a limited service, then I think most people would value a rationing based on need, and immediacy of need. Price rationing means simply that one recieves health care in direct relationship to ones wealth, and many of us find that inherintly immoral.

Let me put it this way, if you are going to make rationing of health care a political issue, do you really want somebody like Bush and Cheney makes those decisions? Once again, we see the flaw in Tano's world view: so long as we get somebody who makes decisions he likes government is great, when this isn't so, why it is bad.

"As a proud socialist, the director appears to feel that there are few problems in life that can’t be solved by government regulation"

Of course, "socialists" do not aspire to government regulation, but governmental ownership.

"(that would be the same government that’s already given us the U.S. Postal Service and the Department of Motor Vehicles). "

Talk about cherry-picking. The DMV is the classic whipping-boy in these types of discussions, but I must say that the last few interactions I have had with my DMV have been infinitly more positive than the last few interactions I have had with some private companies, like my cable company, or my phone company. I would suggest that the public has had far more problems with their private insurance companies than with, e.g. the Social Security Administration.

The old saw about government bureaucracy being bad, and private buraucracy being good just doesnt accord well with experience.

As to Steve's comments about what is "free". I think most people understand perfectly well that there isn't anything that is "free". The term is used to mean free at the point of service, and that is a very good thing, for it allows health care to be accessible when needed, irresepctive of the transitory ability to pay.

And I think that most people also understand the notion of rationing - and how prices ration in a market system. If health care is a limited service, then I think most people would value a rationing based on need, and immediacy of need. Price rationing means simply that one recieves health care in direct relationship to ones wealth, and many of us find that inherintly immoral.

Pointing out extremes in a country as large as ours could probably fill a hundred more films like this one but what about the successes of our system? I'm sure they are too boring to be worthy of a mention.

Movies like this are no way to formulate public policy.

The "free" health care is available between 8 a.m. and noon. You show up to a windowless waiting room (i.e. no receptionist or nurse). The people keep track of who came first and wait for a nurse to open a door and call you in. Depending on who you are you may be called out of order. The care in general is primitive.

The essentially government sanctioned "black" market takes place after noon, at which time you can actually schedule an appointment. You pay cash. The government has this arraignment so they can say they "provide free health care" when in reality they don't have the resources to do so.

Her view of Germany and France is that the systems are much like Croatia in that the government provided health care could not possibly take care of the population, so a private (first, last and everything in between dollar system) exists along side. In all three systems connections to government official could allow certain individuals to get the "free" system to treat them in the same way as the market system.

I think the primary problem with the U.S. system is that it detaches first dollar money from patients decisions. If people have a boo boo and want 30 Vicadin, then they should bear all the cost. They might find that they could get by with 5 or 10.