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Last numbers I heard, US is the country that pays the absolute most for healthcare per year, and has the 37th best coverage.
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Source? What was the methodology for these ratings?
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Wiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_..._United_States
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Active debate over health care reform in the United States concerns questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, efficiency, cost, and quality. The World Health Organization (WHO), in 2000, ranked the U.S. health care system as the highest in cost, first in responsiveness, 37th in overall performance, and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).[5][6] The WHO study has been criticized in a study published in Health Affairs for its methodology and lack of correlation with user satisfaction ratings.[7] A 2008 report by the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last in the quality of health care among the 19 compared countries.
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I couldn't tell you about the methodology directly, that'd be something for you to research.
My reply to your first and second points would be the fact that the public option will only be an option. If the quality/prices of private healthcare are better then people can easilly just stick with them or go back. The point of the public option is to keep these companies in check without directly setting more regulations on top of them, to improve the quality of healthcare, and lower the price.
The public option isn't medicare, or medicaid.
As for the third point if there being no money.. I think healthcare is one of those things that government has to have a foot in period. Its not a luxury, its a basic human need. (If it isn't, then take it out of prisons) And as you pointed out, simply adding regulations to the existing companies doesn't work. And giving out govt money to people to pay for it does not solve the problem of quality or change anything for people who have coverage.
I would agree with the idea of the goverment backing out as far as regulations that raise the costs for the existing companies.. however I think that doing that alone won't cause prices to go down or quality to go up. In my opinion the public option needs to be made to help mode the standards for insurance. If the private companies want to offer better services and charge more, then they're free to do that.