Germany has 80 million people and they manage. They also manage to have one of the strongest economies in the world.
A tax burden of 40% with health services that still run at a deficit is not my idea of a successful nor sovereign country.
How is different from having less taxes BUT having to spend more in "health insurances"?
At least the public healthcare system doesn't look to make PROFIT.
Private healthcare=they will keep using old machines cause "why buy new ones and SPEND? Oh it work better? Who cares, i'm private, profit profit"
Nobody would spend more in healthcare services if people paid out of their pocket.
Some would have to actually work to pay for it but that should be expected. Prices would be competitive to consumer desires so your last example wouldn't happen. If old machines didn't meet people's needs, people wouldn't go to clinics who didn't update their technology. The only companies who would make profit are the ones that people like.
It worked magnificently in early 1900s America. Small groups of poor people would hire their own private doctor for pennies on the dollar of today. However, eventually some lobbied for restriction and look at the mess we have...
Comparing early 1900 technology to 2011? Nice, go heal yourself with 1900 machines. No wait, they HAD 0 MACHINES back then. They didn't even discover penicillin. An infection->you are dead.
Also the bolded part is false. New machines=moar expensive=i cannot spend so much, better go to the cheaper hospital even if they use older things. Just look at how things work. Normal people doesn't know about machines and what else, otherwise they would be doctor or engineers. Hospitals are better spending money in marketing than in useful things.
The mess usa have is cause it's a mixed things of private shit and insurances. If you are poor->no one heal you. But you STILL pay a lot of taxes, for what purposes, don't know.
With a decent public system you would have a good healthcare for EVERYONE, and the money would actually be used better cause you could not make profit out of it. Of course you need to have some systems to check how much every hospital spend to avoid absurd wastes
In europe countries manage to do that and our public system is often (always?) better than a loooot of private systems of other nations (who said usa?)
In b4 greece: greece fail is a problem of corruption and incompetence but that would ruin a private system too. If the government is corrupted then how long do you think a private system would last?