Economics of Universal Health Care

A student stopped by my office today and asked for materials on the economics of universal coverage. Apparently his instructor in Social Work class showed the movie "Sicko" and used the opportunity to rail for government provided health care. He asked for a few quick links to gather material for a 5-minute defense of markets. Below is a copy of the e-mail I sent him, you may find it informative as well:

A podcast on the topic:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/11/arnold_kling_on.html

A good case study:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/02/cherrypicking-1.html#comments

Video of Economics of Health Care:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84CDvTfz_y4

This article is written for a general audience and is very good:
http://i.abcnews.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=3580676&page=1

Academic Study:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w13429
It's main points:
1. You cannot compare U.S. and Canada's life expectancy or infant mortality because of innate population differences
2. Once you have been diagnosed with a condition, you are much more likely to die in Canada than in the U.S.
3. Point 2 is partly due to the fact that it is much more difficult to be screened for problems, and thus you are diagnosed much later in the prognosis.
4. Income is at least as important in Canada, and probably more important than in the U.S. This is known to be true for Britain, especially for Children's Health (see http://www.nber.org/papers/w13495)

Finally, make the point that a profit driven system induces innovation in the advancement of medical technology. We invent cures for profit much more quickly than we do for the feeling of "doing good". The U.S. is the leading innovator in developing new drugs and technologies, the rest of the world just copies what we accomplish. This makes it less expensive for them (and more expensive for us) to achieve the same level of technology and drugs. If we stopped doing this, they would be in a much worse situation. For an analogy, suppose you put nice siding on your house, and your neighbor comes over and rips it off and puts it on his house. Then people come by and say, "Wow, your neighbor's house looks so much better, and he did it at a much lower cost!" That is what world health care is like.