In most european countries and, I believe, in Canada, Cuba etc. the national health systems are controlled by the state. The Health Services are not industries, but services. Canada and the UK and the rest of europe

I hope you are right, that Americans would be prepared to pay for a national health service that maintained profits to fund research, but i'm not sure that any leader proposing the necessary tax hikes could get himself elected.

I think the main issue for America is that under the present system the taxpayers can't, or won't, pay for universal health care but the structural changes to cut costs would be unacceptable as they would impact directly on the huge number of personal shareholders in medical insurance companies and other areas of the health industry. Even more difficult is the impact the structural change would have on some of the biggest shareholders, pension funds.

Hard choices will have to be made. And from the outside looking in I think they ought to be.

I suppose my basic political view is that "No one left behind" ought to be the motto of every nation when it comes to education, health and retirement.