I'd have to see the money trail between the insurance industry and the research hospitals and scientists before I could seriously entertain that theory.

I would think that if we kept spending the same amount of money per capita we are spending on health care (which is double what France is) but weren't spending so much of it on the bureaucracy and overhead of the "health care industry" (i.e., the insurance companies and HMOs) then there would be more money available for other things.