Did saying socialised medicine was evil make me sound like I'm a big fan or something? Now don't get me wrong, the US system is shitty and evil too, just in different ways and it's just as fucked by the government and the higher powers, but it's dumb to pretend your shit's perfect and the other shit's useless just because you like your particular turd better. You could theoretically get the best of both worlds with a private system by having hospitals form a trading union to better control the market price, but again, supply and demand comes into play. There is no benefit to this theoretical union because people will willingly pay higher prices to survive, therefore there is no impetus on the private industry to drive down costs below the absolute maximum people can pay.