Not the same thing at all. It is perfectly possible to have a system in which the provider sets prices but in which no one is denied access to the service based on their ability to pay. It is simply a matter of subsidizing the patient. You do not have to nationalize health care to achieve this. In fact, this is how dentistry works in Canada. Dentists are not covered under the health program, but poor people receive subsidies. The difference between dentists and doctors in this country is that if you want to have a family dentist, you can find one, and if you want to have a family doctor, you can't.SteveUK wrote:but you cannot have profit in the provision of health care. It is not fair for someone to be denied treatment on their abiltiy to pay.
Again, the Canadian and UK systems do not eliminate profit, they regulate access and prices.
In the US, if a rich person and a poor person develop cancer, the rich person gets immediate cancer care and the poor person gets none.
In Canada, if a rich person and a poor person develop cancer, they both have to wait in a long queue for an available doctor, hoping that they don't die before one becomes available. By law, the rich person cannot pay for private cancer treatment, even though they would shorten the queue for the poor person as well. As a result, the rich person becomes a medical tourist, pouring his money into the medical system of another country, and the poor person sit in the queue and waits.
Neither scenario is ideal, but ideology on both sides prevents any meaningful exploration of alternatives.