Private health care puzzle

Private health care appears to offer a better service then any government funded service yet in the USA they are still spending huges amounts of money on the health care system.
Making health insurance compulsory seems to be a smart idea. Blaming the welfare state state wont do any good.
I am interested in what Americans have to say.
What is the point of private healthcare if it still costs the tax payer huge amounts?
Non Americans might find these links lean towards the consertive view.
mayabe the last one has some left wing leanings

The current system poses three main problems. First, it’s expensive. In 2003 total spending on health care was $1.7 trillion, some $5,800 for every man, woman, and child in the nation, accounting for more than 15 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (and up from 14.1 percent of GDP in 2002).

Second, despite all the spending, many Americans don’t have health insurance. A May 2003 Congressional Budget Office study estimated that 59 million Americans are uninsured at some point in the course of a year, while 21 million to 31 million are uninsured for the whole year. According to a June 2003 report from the Institute of Medicine, the U.S. loses between $65 billion and $130 billion annually as a result of poor health and early death due to lack of insurance. The uninsured impose costs on the rest of us, too: A 2003 Kaiser Commission report to the Urban Institute estimated that uninsured Americans each year receive about $34.5 billion in uncompensated health care while paying $26.4 billion out of their own pockets.
www.reason.com..." target="_blank" class="postlink">full story

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