Yes, the problem is American universities, like hospitals, are severely overpriced.

There are many reasons for this, but it's easier for Finland to pay collectively for higher education when the tuition is reasonable.

Just like my healthcare argument -- if we could bring down the cost of higher education then subsidizing it for everyone would be less controversial.

You're missing the entire thesis of the article. The thesis is that Finland (et al)'s education and healthcare systems are more efficient because they are socialized. Given one binary comparison between condition A and condition B (Finland vs. US), some causal speculation is justified. Given dozens of such comparisons, all coming out to the same result, your case becomes anti-empirical.

soru's comment on this thread provides one nice rational model that tries to explain why. But the much more important point is that our rationalizations are slaves to the empirical data. Not the other way around.

> Given dozens of such comparisons, all coming out to the same result, your case becomes anti-empirical.

As others in this thread have pointed out, Finland vs. US is not a good comparison, Europe vs the US would be. We can socialize medicine in individual states with good results (see: MA) but US-wide? With 332+ million people? With all the differences in costs of living in different parts of the country?

When the EU rolls out a single-payer system for the entire Eurozone then we'll have something to compare against but the entire nation of Finland has less people (5.7 million) than New York City (8 million) and is a monoculture, to boot.

"When the EU rolls out a single-payer system for the entire Eurozone..."

Basically the national health systems inside EU co-operate not entirely dissimilarly to a european single payer system:

http://www.kela.fi/web/en/european-health-insurance-card

Given that the mishmash of european systems has much wider variance probably than US internal schemes do, I find the argument 'but US is too" complex not entirely convincing.

Given how much of the current scientific and technological context of our civilization comes from the US, and there are lot of single payer schemes working in other countries, I would find the "we don't want to" argument more convincing than "it's too complex for us".

Anyway, I don't know the nuts and bolts of any of the health care systems but generally when political will manifests itself people are capable of all sorts of things if they are within the realm of the laws of physics.

It's not like health care was rocket science. The best bang for buck comes from providing just the cheapest things modern medicine has come with within the reach of all. It's not surgeries and MRI machines and all that capital intensive stuff. A nurse with a basic kit could achieve all sorts of improved health outcomes in his/her patients.

Everytime I see a dicussion of socialized healthcare in the US I remember Firefighters and chuckle. Historically speaking, a couple of years ago, Firefighting in parts of the US was a private enterprise, that meant that, if you did not pay for your firefighting insurance, and your house caught a fire, firefigthers who were there to put down your neighbours fire would let your house burn to the ground.

In one hundred years, society will be laughing at the current system that let's people die, or ruin their life financially because they got Crohns disease and aren't able to pay them or to be attended because they don't have the means to.

It is just that some societies are not as mature as others.

Do you think this is related to Finland being much, much, much more homogeneous demographically than the US?

I was going to say "ethnically homogeneous", but that isn't even the core of the issue. The US has populations with vastly divergent cultural backgrounds and outlooks (there's even a few types of white people); it's harder to argue that Hassidim in NYC should care for Crips in outer LA.

Uh, I have no idea when the concept of perceived fairness brakes down. But that's not the point in the end. Universal services like school and healthcare make sense because they improve the quality of life for everyone.

I suppose the core issue is that there is trust that the public funds are used in proper way.

I don't understand the 'US is too large to X' arguments. I thought the states are sufficiently independent to handle most things distinctively from the federal level. But I don't know enough of how US works to discuss this beyond it looks odd. Couldn't e.g Oregon implement something, and if it works, then other states could just copy the model. From the outside the concept of distinct state level governments sound like they could provide great platform for innovation and experimentation. But maybe they are bogged down in federal legislation and partisan politics?