Health Care

Privatized health care sucks because not everyone can get health care, among other problems. 

Universal health care sucks because even though everyone gets health care, there is no incentive for health care providers to provide high quality health care.

Until we create a perfect society, where people provide free, high quality health care for the benefit of all, why not have government vouchers for privatized health care?  With a government voucher, I can get health care, from any health care provider of my choice, and the government will pay that health care provider for all of the health care expenses that I accrue (with tax dollars of course). This should create competition between health care providers, and create an incentive for health care providers to provide me with high quality health care in order to keep and attract more business.     

What are the potential downfalls of this type of system?  Does it actually work?  I am willing to accept that people will abuse the system in order to get prescription drugs, plastic surgery, etc, whenever they want, if it means that at the same time, a person with a deadly disease can have that expensive, life saving operation done by the best doctors around, without having to pay a dime.

The big problem with any voucher system (other than outright frauds) is that the market knows it's "free money", and they tend to raise their prices accordingly.

Note that people still buy health insurance in Canada for services to be received over and above that offered by their universal system.  Canada's system is fairly good ... and anyone who really wants more service and can afford such huge outlays of cash, can always cross the border into the USA.