In the UK the NHS does a decent job, and when ti fails it is normally due to the negligence of people, rather than the NHS itself, or because the government didn't fund the NHS well enough and again human negligence lead to the misdirection of funds.
The NHS as a public service works. Its flaws are the result of the following 2 main problems:
- Human negligence (this will happen in any health service, commercial or public
- Underfunding (this is a political issue, one that has a high incentive to fix as it sways voters))
The NHS cannot outperform rivals such as Bupa because as rich as the government is in comparison, that wealth has to go elsewhere to things such as subsidizing transport, defence, benefits, regulators, running prisons, police, etc etc
This acts as a counter balance to the incentiv eto spend, negating the vast majority of arguements in the US against public healthcare.
No the government wont make commercial operations crash into the ground, not without taxing you, and they will never do that because that would lose them an election, so they try to fiddle other ways of diverting resources from cash cows that serve no public interest, or.. just not spending more on the health service.
We have instances here when the NHS cannot cope that commercial operations are contracted to take on the extra demand.
Also commercial operations tout their improved resources, for example, if you go to a Bupa hospital, a lot of the staff spend their workday in an NHS hospital then switch over for the extra money. In a Bupa hospital you get nicer furnishings and cups of teas etc, its essentially the same healthcare but with a polish over the top and faster turn arounds.
If the NHS did not exist, we wouldn't have lower taxes, the government would just spend it on something else. Besides according to the statistics, a public health service would cost you less than the current system, it might force the US health insurance industry to put quality of service ahead of share dividends and profit margins.
heck I know US nurses on msn who've told me about financial worries regarding medical expenses..