You guys all raise good points. I agree the profit motive creates a conflict of interest. I guess I'm just trying to be realistic. Like I conceded in my post I'm not real educated about this topic. However, it would be quite an economic shock for us to convert to a single payer government ran health care system?

I would like to learn more about how other countries run their systems. The problem of course is we have a much different country than German, Japan, or Scandinavia. We have huge immigrant populations, a huge number of undereducated people, and large segments of the population who live in a cycle of poverty. If we were to make such a shift it would require fixing all of these problems simultaneously and slowly.

However, the political resistance would be high. Not only from insurance groups, but also from doctors. The cost of a medical education is enormous as is the cost of malpractice insurance. Perhaps there's a way to accomplish the goals we all seek in a way which would be less of a shock to our economy?