[flexblue]

> It is used in Germany, the Nederlands, and Switzerland I think.

Germany today has a public/private mixture, Switzerland and Netherlands is fully private. I'm making this distinction because private profits do exist in these system, while the original comment I replied to lamented them.

> The difference in payment between US and European health care workers isn't large enough to make much of a dent in US healthcare expenses. The big sources of costs is the US massive bureaucracy dealing with bills, insurance and negotiation, as well as the medical inefficiency and overprovision inherent in the system. Also high drug prices.

Are you sure about this? Last time I looked it up, I came to a different conclusion: Administrative overhead (~8%) is neither a huge part of costs, nor is it massively different than in Europe. Drugs prices also only account for 10%.

Salaries for workers on the other hand are a significant chunk, and those are easily double than those in Germany in most cases. Note that I'm talking about all salaries, doctors, nurses, clerks, cleaners...

I agree with the overprovisioning being much costlier, but those are due to legal liabilities being more expensive in the US in general. In Germany, even if you win a malpractice suit, you get a pittance.

> There are about 1 million doctors working in the US. So thats 100 billion. US overspending is about 1 500 - 1 800 billion.

Again, this disregards the vast majority of worker salaries involved.

[mcv]

> "Switzerland and Netherlands is fully private."

Private insurance in those countries works because those markets are highly regulated, and they don't have a corporate culture of trying to rip off people as much as they can.