Thanks Lauren.

The health care system is broken and needs fixing as Bernie admirably keeps repeating. The problems being that it does not serve all in the country and comes at a price double that of other western countries.

Nationalizing it can achieve the distribution (as has been the case in the UK) and sounds like a solution but there are other ways of achieving the goals without being lumbered with the massive bureaucracy needed to run it and no more efficiency than the current system.

That individuals and companies make money from healthcare is not counter productive as you seem to think it is -- it doesn't matter (the profit motivation is helpful in driving innovation and timely delivery of services). What matters is that players are in a totally (or as near as possible) competitive environment to deliver what ever services they bring to the system. And, this needs complete transparency of proceedures, products and pricing for the patient with their medical professionals to make decisions best for them (this is absent now).

That said there is certainly a place for national guidelines and individual state plans.