Are you familiar with the adage “write what you know?” You would be wise to heed it.

Making people pay 100% of the cost for preventive care like flu shots is a *horrible* way to keep health care costs down. It's less expensive to get immunizations than it is to get treated for the diseases they prevent. It's less costly to get good prenatal care than it is to deal with late-pregnancy complications. It's cheaper to invest in smoking cessation aids than it is to suffer cancer treatments. Add in the “public health” benefits — why this concept gets such short shift in the 21st century is beyond me — in addition to the individual benefits and the cost-effectiveness of preventive care becomes even more clear. An ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure.

Forcing people to bear the full cost for routine care will result in fewer people choosing to receive it. Health care/insurance isn't like buying goods or services that result in immediate utility, like filling a gas tank or buying shoes. Preventive care's benefits come in the future as unseen costs never appear, not in the present.

Fewer people will pay for preventive, future-benefit care, not because they're idiots, but because we're all hardwired to discount future rewards. It's called “temporal discounting” — humans universally perceive future utility to be diminished compared to the present. It's a phenomenon that's been observed in species other than humans, in fact.

You're correct that administrative costs are far too high, but forcing consumers to directly pay for services is not way to ultimately lower total healthcare costs. A better solution (or at least part of one) is for the government to step in and provide incentive for health care providers and insurers to switch to uniform electronic records, which would both lower costs and reduce errors. Better IT could save roughly $80 billion annually.

Currently the health industry is reluctant to do this because it's highly expensive to make the switch and deeply disruptive to entrenched interests. Even though the long-term cost savings seem clear, for-profit insurers and providers who answer to shareholders seeking short-term profits lack incentive to move forward. The government should step in and incentivize or require modernization to get this market problem fixed.

As for your “nationalized health care” bogeyman — give me a break. As our system currently stands, most health insurers already retain the right to decide what counts as “medically necessary,” not your doctor (check the fine print of your own insurance if you don't believe me). There's no reason to believe administrators of a public plan would be any more disruptive to the doctor-patient relationship than administrators of a private plan.

Let's be honest here: Canadians' use of U.S. health services has been radically overstated, while more than a million Americans seek care in Mexico (or get prescription drugs reimported from Canada) every year. You should do more research on comparative health care systems before belittling Canada's (or any other country's).

Citations:
For examples of the cost-effectiveness of preventive care, see http://bit.ly/GRbF5
To learn more about the phenomena of temporal discounting and discounted utility, Google those terms (duh)
For info on the promise (and problems) of electronic record keeping, see http://bit.ly/15W9J4 and http://bit.ly/4v3Yx
For info on Canadians seeking treatment in the U.S., see http://bit.ly/aZtS9
Here's a nice piece on Americans seeking care in Mexico: http://bit.ly/Luqhm
And here's a nice piece looking at the pros and cons of different countries' health systems: http://bit.ly/19LyIM

Where are your citations, Brigette?

Benito, since you have taken it upon yourself to defend Wenotme, care to take up his cause on the other 11 points that he has no answer for.

Its obvious your only argument is to attack, the other person rather than offer facts that support your position.

Benito, can you point me to where in the Constitution Congress is authorized to take from those who have simply to provide for the needs of those who do not.