Part of the reason Britain, Australia and other countries with functional national healthcare systems do work well, (with lower budgets than the US industry) is through their use of G.P's (general practitioners).
It massively increases the efficiency of the NHS in the UK by preventing the wasting of resources in initial diagnosis by ensuring that patients do not get shunted from department to department carrying out wasteful tests.
Whilst the U.S does have "family doctors" and other (if this makes any sense) less specialised specialties, they provide nowhere near as key a role in initial diagnosis (in the UK, all patients outside of A&E must be referred to a hospital specialist by their G.P)
I feel to improve the efficiency of the US system, Obama would do well by implementing a similar system in initial diagnosis in the US
Had another account, Lost it though.. sniff 
