We actually agree more than you think :)

I live in Uruguay, and the local medicine system works a lot better than the U.S. system in practice, for the "normal" cases, and at an incredibly cheaper cost.

It's far from perfect, and hospitals are usually very near bankruptcy and have to be propped up by the state.

I've written a lot about it, I should condense it into a blog post, but for example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6261120

"We have private emergency systems, and they work extremely well for the consumer, my girlfriend had a burn from scalding water and was treated by a doctor within 5 minutes, for U$ 15. Doctors at those emergency services are criminally underpaid, though (as little as U$ 500 per 6 hour-shift monthly)"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3558726

"My uncle went for a cardiologist evaluation here in Montevideo, Uruguay (where we have a form of socialist-style medicine in the style called Mutualism). They found a suspicious spike in his heartbeat, which they suspected to be a treatable syndrome (Wolff-Parkinson-White), and decided to do some special evaluations. He was treated (with full anaesthetics) one week later (at almost zero cost)."

A big one about healthcare costs in Uruguay, on a parent post comparing heart surgery in India to the U.S.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6124081

"on an investigative piece from a weekly that goes into great detail on the costs of surgery in Uruguay. I'll just quote some basic numbers:

- Fixed fee per major surgery (medical act) UY$ 27.500 / U$ 1300

- Monthly Head Heart Surgeon salary (per hospital) UY$ 263.000 / U$ 12500

- Other heart surgeons, between UY$ 162.500 and 243.000 depending on seniority and other factors - U$ 8.000 to 12.000 range, per month.

Those are close to the best salaries anywhere in Uruguay, usually as well trained as any doctor in the U.S.

- Cost to the hospital per major operation (heart surgery), UY$ 206.000 / U$ 10.000

Smaller operations like angioplasty cost UY$ 60.000 / U$ 3.000

The most expensive surgery is heart transplant, which costs UY$ 684.000 / U$ 32000

All those are set by the government, so those ARE the actual costs (well, actually they were in 2008, I didn't adjust by inflation and exchange rate), no insurance or strange stuff involved.

The patient is not billed a cent, but there is a huge delay (months usually), and doctors don't really schedule surgery unless it's critical for the person's health (almost no quality of life procedures through the public system).
Source:
http://www.semanario-alternativas.info/archivos/2008/5)mayo/...

MRI costs in Uruguay

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2248231

The most expensive MRI bill for someone in the "mutualism" system here in Uruguay is U$ 100.

I tried to explain the Uruguayan "mutualist" socialist health system here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1627862

"Mutual organisations do not have external shareholders - they are controlled by their members. Members may be users of the mutual, employees, other stakeholders or a combination of these Mutual organisations are either owned by and run in the interests of existing members, as is the case in building societies, cooperatives and friendly societies, or, as in many public services, owned on behalf of the wider community and run in the interests of the wider community"

A HN member compared them to credit unions, I think it's a valid analogy.

The mutualist system is always near bankruptcy and is perfectible (and the government is always meddling), but it doesn't bankrupt it's users and it kind of works (life expectancy here in Uruguay is the same as in the U.S.).

funnily, it seems it's very similar to the Japanese case (and MRI's cost U$ 98 there too):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2247969