I don't see how we can switch to a universal healthcare system when the existing system in place today rips off the government for untold billions of dollars.

About the only way I can see is that the accounting for the system is 100% transparent.

Transparency is important. But the problem is that we don't live in a world where everybody has perfect information, so if a doctor tells you you need something more expesive (like a proton beam thearpy? from the $100 million particle accelerator) when you don't need it, all the transparcency in the world won't change that.

In the US:

From 1991 to 2005, only 5.9 percent of doctors were responsible for 57.8 percent of malpractice payments. Each of those doctors made at least two payments.

http://www.centerjd.org/MB_2007medmal.htm#_edn31

And yet, it it illegal to set up a database of the doctors and their malpractice rates and sell access to the public.

So yea - far from ANY 'perfect information'. Having information is needed for "the market" to work - yet the jabbering fools call for more of 'the market' as 'the solution'.

Kinda like how Creekstone farms can't advertise how they have tested their meat for BSE.
http://firedoglake.com/2007/05/31/cognitive-dissonance/#comments