I suggest a fully free market healthcare and insurance system which would provide great care for all at costs all could afford.

Well, if you cut off your fingers, multiple of them, you may only have the option to sow part of them back.  But hey, you will get great care up to what you can afford of course.

http://www.spike.com/video-clips/lobeug/sicko-ring-finger

Good job.  Completely ignore the part about being a free market healthcare and insurance system and retort an irrelevant video that deals with no insurance at all and a government involved health care system.

You post a video about the complete opposite of what I said.

If you keep up this kind of debate tactic, no one will ever listen to you.  Ever.

Free market healthcare would not be affordable to everyone, there are plenty of people who struggle to make do without medical expenses. And then you get people with ongoing problems whose medical insurance runs out.

I have not seen a single country with a fully free market health system that has been affordable for everyone. On the other hand there are plenty of countries with highly socialised health systems that run quite succesfully.

You've never seen a free market health system because one doesn't exist.  Well, we almost had one from the 50's to the 60's.   Was pretty darn accessible to everyone back then.

And you're also failing to take into consideration the cost reductions and broadened insurance options.  Actually, your worries are aimed at the current system by the sounds of it rather than a free amrket healthcare and insurance system.

I'm not complementing your current system - it's clearly broken. However a completely free market system will not provide low income people with healthcare even if the healthcare (and associated insurance) is significantly cheaper. Then as I pointed out there will be people with long term injuries or illnesses for whom insurance will be very expensive or plain out unobtainable.

A socialised healthcare system deals with these problems essentially by getting the healthy and wealthy to chip in for the sickly and poor.

If you start spouting out just your opinions, about how some system that doesn't exist anywhere, and hasn't ever shown signs of existing anywhere as some sort of optimal solution, do you think anyone would listen to you?

If the free market worked as it is supposed to, and you claim, why would anyone even need an insurance system?  Is there some sort of insurance system that covers car maintenance somewhere?  Do you need insurance to buy groceries or a videogame system?

Your ONE claim about the U.S healthcare system you can possibly make is that, if there was interstate competition for health insurance, then it would be possible to get some easy.  Well, answer me this, since you seem to claim this optimal system of yours, how much would it actually cost to get fingers sowed back on in your utopia?  If you can't name prices, and I gave you actual prices people face for lack of insurance today, then you have NO leg to stand on, and can't make any claim. 

The point is that there are things people can't afford.  A number of individuals today can't afford cars, for example.  The market doesn't magically make cars available for everyone.  And that is how the free market works, you aren't guaranteed anything.

If you want to give examples, give REAL numbers and examples of how your argument would work, or you know what?  You just have your own vaporous opinion to lean on, which is worth about as much as anyone else's opinion.

You want more examples of your proposed utopia?  Let's look back at American history, in big cities, without any government involvement:

http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/projects/bluetelephone/html/health.html

You are making a positive claim.  It is up to you to show evidence to support it.

And I will give you what had happened with China:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialized_medicine#China

China once prided itself for a government sponsored "socialized medicine" system, in which most Chinese, including urban and rural residents, enjoyed low-priced medical service. However, when China began economic reforms in the early 1980s, the system was dismantled to ease government burdens and changed to a market-oriented health care system. Insufficient government funding resulted in deficits for public health institutions, thus opening doors for hospitals to generate their own revenue by raising fees and aggressively selling drugs. Growing public criticism of soaring medical fees, lack of access to affordable medical service, poor doctor-patient relationships and low medical insurance coverage compelled China from 2006 to deliberate on a new round of reforms.

In a free market, businesses have the right to fire bad customers.  How does a nation provide sufficient health coverage, if businesses delivering health coverage could fire customers.  Do you want a nation where emergency rooms can turn away people?

Hey Richard, ask your dad or grandfather how much healthcare and insurance cost back in the 50's or 60's. You know, back when the government wasn't so involved in it.

And why do you say that buying insurance across state lines is my only claim? Do you really think that is the only element the government is involved in? Ask new Jersey male residents why they must pay for breast cancer coverage. Insurance carriers are forced to charge men for that coverage across ALL insurance plans. Better still, every single insurance plan is the exact same regardless of carrier. Every single plan. Because they are forced to. And that's just the beginning.

Do you think your health insurance is sold to you? Nope, it's sold as group packages which your employer buys. Going free market and removing the employer/insurance carrier relationship requires them to sell directly to individuals who care a whole more more about costs than a dude in office that picks up any old coverage for the company will.

How much do you think it costs to manage all 130,000 pages of medicare regulations?

Did you know that private insurance base their rates and reimbursement values on the Medicare rates values? Ouch.

Are you familiar with the concept of a medical savings account? I bet your employer pays between $5k to $10k per year to match your company health insurance plan. Imagine that money being put toward a interest bearing medical savings plan instead?

So if letting the government have it's way with the healthcare and insurance industry is the way to go, then why does America spend approximately twice as much per capita on healthcare than any other nation on Earth?

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/health/spend/cost_longlife75.gif

What happens from an economic standpoint in a system run by corporations, but flushed with funds by the government (no cost containment, plus flush with cash under the belief that competition will drive down prices) is that the money causes businesses to go increasingly upscale and drive up their costs and they push for more and more procedures, and research and develop more and more. The same is happening with colleges. It would be interesting what would happen to colleges, and industry, if the government stopped with funding college education, and individuals could file bankruptcy to cancel their debts. Colleges would go under left and right, and industry would be forced to find out other ways to get a trained workforce.

The comment about "letting government have it's way" is a bit absurd. There isn't some sort of whimish dictator who does things for giggles. There are people in government who try to juggle a lot of factors, and the usual policy consists of what pops out of a pressure cooker at its weakest point in the system, that would offend the least amount of people.

That sounds fine to me since I come from a family with a good amount of wealth, but I think that kind of screws over all the poorer people a little bit.