Given the states success in running a military are you suggesting that state sponsored should ran in similar fashion to the military. To be perfectly honest I’m not sure how you run a social program like the military.

Additionally, you seem to forget the military actually provides a service for the funding it receives. Universal health care would not provide a service in any normal interpretation of the word.

One final note. The military has to compete with the military of other states make efficiency and innovation much more like. Locking up health care under the state eliminates competition.

Insurance companies make more money by denying care to some of those who need it most.

Individually bought insurance is prohibitively expensive, preventing competition from bringing prices down since so few people can afford it at all.

Healthcare costs are rising every year.

Our government has decided not to negotiate with drug companies to get a better bargain on medicines through our current social medicine system.

So yes, free markets when they function properly are great at increasing efficiency. However, sometimes the market fails, like when economic incentives are such that it becomes profitable to screw the consumer, like in the case of health insurance.

I would propose a federal health insurance program, while leaving the rest of the healthcare system alone. Allow doctors and patients to work out the best treatments, which will in turn drive competition among pharmaceutical companies. We would then have one large not for profit insurance company vs. hundreds of smaller, for profit companies that make money by denying coverage.

I don’t see much innovation going on in the insurance business, other than new ways to deny coverage, so I don’t think the government stepping in will do much to stifle innovation.

And with more people accessing health care drug companies should be able to make even more money and research more new treatments.