I'll just leave this here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danmunro/2014/06/16/u-s-healthcare-ranked-dead-last-compared-to-10-other-countries/
Don't think I'm some sort of commie, i'm not - I have private health care here in Aus cause I can afford it (every one making more that $50k p/a is encouraged too, otherwise you pay a yearly levy).
Just yesterday I took my 2 year old boy into a private hospital for a minor operation and thanks to our health insurance it cost us Zero dollars.
If we weren't well off the same operation would have been still free, we'd have just gone to a public hospital and had to wait a couple of months instead (it was elective surgery).
We're facing the exact opposite problem. I'm not one who gets his information from friends' Facebook wall macros or biased media archives, instead I have researched the actual industry for the past six years going back (at lesat) to the post-war 40s. There may be a proper way to run government health care (eg "universal" health care,) but it's never been done in either a way which respects private property, or a way which doesn't cause resource shortages or dislocations of some sort. Most "civilized" nations with centralized health care fall into one of those categories.
In the US, an implementation of any kind of centralized system will still leave people at the so-called "mercy of the corporations" because we have corporatists who run the government. It is a disgusting incestuous relationship between government and the market, resulting in disfiguring mutations of the private market, resembling something more like a fascist economy and giving the recipients of poor care nowhere to turn and no legal recourse against failures.
Even under the HMO system, which was developed and run by the very same people who decry the system as inadequate, discriminatory, and uncaring, my own health care has been great, and I have always had the option of the type of coverage I want. Under the "fixes" to the system I would have lost my coverage, which was far more than adequate for my existing needs (but I do like to plan for the future, being responsible and all,) lowered my monthly premiums by 10% but would have changed me from a co-pay to two deductibles: roughly $5,000 EACH for care and medications, and a whole slew of exceptions including stays (which is par for the existing Medicare system, in which the personnel may be covered, but the cost of the hospital room and stay beyond 24 hours is probably not covered.)
Thankfully that part of the law was changed, but now because I get to keep the insurance coverage which does very well for me I must pay a tax penalty because it (ready for this?) covers me TOO well. W. T. F.
In terms of government coverage versus private coverage, the top provider for rejecting claims has been the government-run system. The top provider for rejecting new applicants has been the government-run system. The top provider with the most failures in care... you guessed it, the government-run system. Leaves little doubt why our own so-called leaders exempted themselves.
In the end, it has been our government which has helped to destroy any vestige of reasonable care in this country. Yes, "big medicine" has been part of it, but again not without fed collusion or coercion.
I'm hoping this helps you to understand our general distaste and mistrust of government-run health systems.
