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At one point I read that the british universal system is actually cheaper per-person than the US market determined system. Sorry I don't have a reference for that, but anecdotally, I can recall several stories of simple items like "saline solution" receiving excessive markup in the market system because it would all be covered by the insurance anyway. I wish some more knowledgeable healthcare people can comment here.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... backed up by lots of solid references. TL;DR for 2015, US per capita spending was $9,451; Canada was $4,608; U.K. was $4,003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_hea... Using life expectancy as a basket proxy for average effectiveness of care, Canada is 12th, the U.K. 20th, and the United States 31st. It's broadly accepted that on average, medical outcomes are generally better for pretty much every indicator (infant mortality, length of hospital stay, etc.) in countries with effective universal health care, at much less the price.

Ah thank you.

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