> By "nationalized", I mean where the state owns and employs a significant portion of the healthcare resources and personnel, as opposed to just paying for it.
In that case the NHS is a lot less nationalized than you might think: a huge proportion of NHS services are provided by private firms under NHS contracts.
> Really? Then I think you've misunderstood my positions and you might want to try another read through my original comment. Unless you think that every other developed country in the world is clamoring for the exact NHS system? Because my point is that I'd prefer single payer or a robust public option to nationalized systems, not that I want the current US system.
The vast majority of developed countries have systems very similar to the UK, with a mix of public and private service provisions. The exact mix of public and private varies, but then again even in the US about half all healthcare expenditure is through the government.
> As I suspected, you're just defending the UK system as being superior to the US system. On this we agree, but it's irrelevant to my broader point.
That wasn't anything to "suspect" - it was there in plain sight. But that was also just as an example. Pretty much every developed country have socialized healthcare that is both cheaper and providing proper care for a large proportion of the population than the US system.
> Side note: why are Europeans so freaking defensive about their systems of governance?
Because the prospect of "US conditions" is terrifying, to the point that "US conditions" is actually a term used in politics in some European countries used to scare voters with the thought of what happens if you let the right wing run rampant over public services.
>I swear that you can't have a reasonable discussion online about healthcare, taxes, employment law, etc, etc. without a mob of people from Europe jumping in to assure everyone that their system is the best and the US system for everything is horrible and we all unknowingly live in a terrifying dystopia.
Equally, you can't have such a discussion without a bunch of Americans trying to push the kind of deregulation that led to the festering mess that is the US healthcare system.
> What are you trying so hard to prove?
It's not that we're trying so hard to prove anything. It's that we find it offensive that you let people die on the streets to avoid applying known working solutions out of fear they're too left wing.
You don't need to pick the UK solution. Any solution from any of the wealthier developed countries is superior to the US system. And they span the range from almost totally socialized (Norway) to mostly private healthcare with a mix of private and public insurance (Germany, France for example).
What they all have in common is that they provide universal coverage and a regulatory system that put people first. Most of them are cheaper than the US. Most of them are