Then explain to me the mechanism by which the universial health care allocate resource? It is one thing to have a guranteed source of revenue via taxation, it is quite another to manages the allocation of resources more efficently than a free agent in a free market.
Even in a socialist system, scarcity still exists.
The free market have an obvious mechanism and it is called profit and loss.
"the most serious medical needs get treatment first"
If that's the definition of universal health care, no country I know has it, because there is no country I know of that has successfully banned cosmetic surgery.
I think that might be a usage thing: over here in the UK they're both plastic surgery, but you see it qualified as reconstructive plastic surgery or aesthetic plastic surgery.
Still, take birthmark removal: it's purely cosmetic, in a sense, but it makes such a difference to peoples' quality of life psychologically that it totally should be on the NHS if you ask me.
Obama's plan is an option right? So as far as the options go, you have the insurance companies and you have the government option. In both cases you'll probably have bureaucrats deciding who gets what. The difference is that the government option will be subsidized by taxes right? Staying even will be less of a concern. So the argument is that as our nation advances further more of our basic needs should be met so that we can free up more time to achieve higher needs like self-actualization. Obama's plan is basically taking us into the next step and making basic health needs less of a concern.
I guess the determinant of whether or not we're actually ready to move into the next stage is whether or not technology has advanced enough to make health care cheap enough to be supported through the government. Of course on the other hand if we don't make this push we may not even have the incentive to make healthcare cheaper. So in other words, we have to create some irritation to make health care less scarce, just as we have to irritate a wound to have it heal faster. Obama's plan may be that irritation. If the plan strains the national budget then we will be more inclined to figure out how to make health care cheaper, and as a result a nonissue. I mean most other first world nations have nationalized health care so it's about time to make that push right? So that basically explains why we should move towards that direction.
So as my response relates to scarcity, the plan allocates resources better by taxing the wealthier americans more. But we can't hope to support this plan by constantly creating better allocations. Obama's plan is assuming that we're at a point where medical care is cheap enough to be supported by allocating a little more from the wealthy.
An insurance company will allocate health care based on profit, the government will (hopefully) allocate it based on need, and that's where we're aiming to go to make it a nonissue for Americans (and everyone in the world ideally).
Even in a socialist system, scarcity still exists.
The free market have an obvious mechanism and it is called profit and loss.