Whole lotta bullshit in this thread. I've posted on this subject in some other threads recently. I'm a Canadian with over forty years experience of public health care.
You can say what you like about Canadian health care but you should include two points in your analysis.
One: Canadian life expectancy is slightly HIGHER than American. That suggests our health care system is adequate, at the very least.
Two: Canadian health care costs are ONE HALF American. Americans spend an average $6,000/yr, Canadians $3,000.
The American system costs twice as much to pay for the increased bureacracy - some significant part of every health dollar goes to administrative costs, far greater than in Canada - and of course to produce the necessary profit.
For years - as long as I've been around - the Canadian corporate sector has had its eyes on the fat profits its American cousin pulls in and is waging a massive propaganda campaign to persuade Canadians that white is black and black is white. The cited article from the Manhattan Institute - or whatever fancy-ass name this bunch of rightwing zealots call themselves - is typical of the sort of garbage they've been shoving at us for years, basically a pack of filthy lies. But Canadians, being no stupider than anyone else, consistently and overwhelmingly vote against any attempts to reduce their coverage.
I would encourage anyone who wants to make a serious comparison between the two systems to steer clear of the propaganda and find genuinely disinterested and reliable data sources.
In answer to the OP the only negative of a public health system would be a whole layer of managers and pencil-pushers would suddenly find themselves looking for work. But since the American economy would suddenly be tens of billions of dollars wealthier I'm sure a whole lot of actually productive jobs could be created.
