Not sure how you get reinventing the wheel from my comment.
What I described would move us in the direction of the countries you're talking about.
I have lived in the UK, and seen doctors through the NHS. I have bought cough medicine at the chemist, and no it was not state-funded. I have visited patients at NHS hospitals where you are one patient sharing a room with 20 others in the same ward. I have talked to people on the waitlist for months to get surgery.
I still think the UK system is better than ours in the US for urgent care. I don't want anyone to be financially ruined because of some unforeseeable accident or emergency.
But I maintain that "health care" is way too big a category to be absolutist about using or not using free market principles in it. There are parts of health care where markets do not make sense. There are other parts where they do.
What I described would move us in the direction of the countries you're talking about.
I have lived in the UK, and seen doctors through the NHS. I have bought cough medicine at the chemist, and no it was not state-funded. I have visited patients at NHS hospitals where you are one patient sharing a room with 20 others in the same ward. I have talked to people on the waitlist for months to get surgery.
I still think the UK system is better than ours in the US for urgent care. I don't want anyone to be financially ruined because of some unforeseeable accident or emergency.
But I maintain that "health care" is way too big a category to be absolutist about using or not using free market principles in it. There are parts of health care where markets do not make sense. There are other parts where they do.