This mention of efficiency reminds me of the time when the energy market in California was de-regulated and the result was sky-rocketing costs and rolling black-outs.<p>America's free-market healthcare system is extremely inefficient.  We pay roughly twice that of the UK (as percentage of GDP) and all the indicators (life expectancy, infant mortality, etc), are roughly the same.<p>In the last two years, in the face of the stock market crash, Social Security has remained solvent and stable.  If it had been privatized, as Bush wanted, it not only would have made wealthy bankers more wealthy (redistribution of wealth upwards, which tends to happen in free markets) by infusing the stock markets with billions, but it would have sent Social Security into the gutter with the rest of the pensions and 401Ks.<p>In fact, lack of regulation in the markets, aka more free, lead to the great recession and the 10% unemployment that we find ourselves in.<p>I could go on about the inefficiencies of the free market, and there are equally many cases where purely social programs also fail.  In the end, the middle path -- a mix of free makets and socialism, a mix of laissez faire and regulation -- works best.