The UK spends about 8% of GDP on health care, we spend about 16%. In European countries that spend amounts closer to US spending levels (e.g., Switzerland), you don't see situations like that.

What I don't understand is how opponents can argue simultaneously:

1) Health care reforms will cause health spending to massively increase!

2) Health reforms mean we will get outcomes just like the British who spend half as much on health as we do today (or 1/3 as much as opponents say we're going to spend).

If Obama were proposing something that would cut our spending to 8% of GDP, I'd be worried that we'd see NHS-style outcomes here. He's not. Even in Britain, increases in spending in the last 10 years have signficantly reduced waits and denials of care. If they doubled NHS spending to equal US per capita spending, they'd probably reduce maternity ward crowding.

Are you really saying that the plan will be so awful that it will lead to us getting only 1/3 of the bang per buck that we get today? I'm fine if you don't believe the claims about making things more efficient, but really, it'll convert 65% of our spending into new totally useless waste?