I was just responding to his "it's a public good so it should be provided by the government". In economics, public goods are automatic things that should be done by the government because the market would fail miserably. I wasn't using jargon for jargon's sake.

Your advocacy for universal health seems to have two parts:

1. It would be nice for someone else to pay for my health care.

2. Universal health care in other countries is better than what we have in the U.S.

My responses would be:

1. Everyone would like this, but it doesn't make us any better off in aggregate. (If you want to redistribute income, it doesn't have to be done via healthcare).

2. Is debatable. There are trade-offs. Look at wait times in Canada. What about innovation over time. Maybe other countries are free riding off of our innovation. Just because costs aren't as visible don't mean they don't exist.

I'm not against all government intervention into healthcare. But, we should understand why the market is failing and how the government is correcting those failures. That is the only way to make good choices about the trade-offs involved. Otherwise, we are just setting ourselves up for failure in the long run.