Willravel

Everyone pays taxes, therefore everyone would pay for a great deal of the system. It wouldn't be you funding other people, it would be the whole funding the whole. Irresponsible people... wait, by that do you mean those who purposefully hurt themselves? Or do you mean people who aren't responsible to make a lot of money?
All of it should be examined carefully, I think.
I don't have figures comparing the average cost of health insurance for an individual vs. the average amount the insurance pays out to said individual, but considering the soaring profits from the industry, I can imagine that people pay more than they get. That's how all insurance industries work. They make a profit from the amount they don't have to pay out (which is outlined in Sicko by showing health care professionals who are asked to deny coverage to people, and who even have denial quotas to reach). Between the high cost of insurance with the lower cost in taxes in places like France, the UK, and Canada, a clear picture appears. Their system is a good samaritan system. Our system is an individual supporting themselves system. I imagine, then, it boils down to philosophy. Clearly, most people in the US think that police work and firefighters and the likes shouldn't require you to pay a private corporation. We get fire coverage and police coverage for relatively cheap (if you were to compare it to health coverage, though it might be a case of apples and oranges in people's minds).
That's absolutely true, but I wonder how much less we'd be paying if those companies weren't looking for a continually larger profit.
UK
Canada
She's no where near perfect, but a lot of why she had to shut up was in the film. In the early 90s, as I'm sure most know, she fought veraciously for better health care. She brought it all the way to congressional committees, until George J. Mitchell, the Senate Majority Leader shot it down and took with it a great deal of her political clout. As a result of this defeat and the resulting loss of political power, she lost her ability to fight. Now, she's a Presidential front runner. If she wins, the bought and paid for Senate Majority leader won't be there any more to get in her way. With the Dem congress, they have a good chance of getting something done, if they're not too busy not helping the troops.
I think that's something we all can agree on.
This is an absolutely brilliant point. I imagine this would be a lot easier if we were able to translate ethics through lawmaking. I'm not really sure as to how one would address a broad problem like this. Maybe we have stronger ethics training in schools, so the next generation will have the ethical technologies necessary to make the decisions the leaders of today have trouble with?

Jazz, so you're saying doctors (who are making less than in the 80s and 90s), new technology (something that has always been present in medicine), and drug companies (I COMPLETELY AGREE ON THIS ONE). I have trouble believing that the skyrocketing costs can really be attributed to doctors or technology in any big way. When I was getting my heart surgery in the late 80s, the Catscan machines and EKG machines were very expensive. As I understand it, as a layman who's simply spent a lot of time talking to doctors, a great deal of the money is going into administration, insurance, and prescriptions. I would call those the big three reasons, based on my understanding.

May I ask what you would do to help those 45m who are uninsured in the capitalist system you were describing?

Thank you very much for pointing this out. Canada is no less capitalist for having universal health care just as we are no less capitalist for having socialized fire protection.
I agree. Too often we ironically thumb our noses at France. Yes, yes: cheese, frogs, surrender, coffee. It's all fun and games until you realize just how much easier it is to live under a lot of their social programs, especially their health care which did deserve it's rating of #1 from the WHO. If, by some mericle, we did ever switch to the system the French use, I suspect a lot of people would complain about taxes...until they needed the system. Then, suddenly, they would shut up like Bush not remembering the name of a head of state. "Old Francy!"

It has a lot to do with collective vs. individual, and that's a much more difficult call in a free market. I do have to wonder, though, if a free market is always right, or just usually right. I think we can see that an 'unfree' health care system can flourish when we look at the rest of the Western World. Does that mean it will work here? Not necessarily, but considering how much better they have it there, I keep coming back to the thought, "Well, it can't really get much worse." Also, I'm a bit of a socialist, so my take on this is bound to be different than other people here who are less socialist.
Hahaha...yeah sometimes it's hard to see what you're paying for when it's all you know. Things could be a lot worse in Sweden (the swedest country of them all).