I understand what you’re talking about, but unfortunately these are just myths. When markets are allowed to operate, the do provide all of what you’re claiming they can’t.

Evidence for this claim?

and I’ll take the evidence of existing systems in developed countries, in which both public transport and healthcare in europe both function better than the private equivalent of the U.S.

I know most of the arguments in that link, and they generally only look at part of the problem. especially the environmental ones (best one i’ve come across: the liberals are responsible for Malaria because they banned DDT; and nevermind that killing all mosquitos would cause an entire ecosystem to collapse)

There’s a really good book on the subject, which dispels these myths much better than I could, called “Healing Our World.”

http://www.ruwart.com/Healing/rutoc.html

healthcare cannot run profitably unless people give them more money than they take from it. so if you are a for profit, you stack the deck in your favor and don’t insure those who certainly won’t be profitable. there’s no situation in which those who need a lot of care will be profitable at affordable prices, because they will always be on the “expense” side of the equation. the same goes for other systemic problems (i.e. problems that will affect Everybody). people need to use it, so they have little bargaining power. and so the companies cherrypick their customers to maximize profit.

public transit is the same. a private system will not serve those areas which have relatively small and poor ridership. it will have commuter buses for the busiest times, but nothing at other times, which is silly considering a lot of people in those areas work odd hours.

water is the same, too. as much as i’d like to see people be less wasteful with water here (same logic as the limited use of roads), but giving money-makers control over an essential resource will lead to extortion, since you can’t not buy water.

also, the comparison of rich countries and poor countries on certain of those things just doesn’t work. the overhead costs are much higher in rich countries as opposed to poor ones, where small business can develop, and many small businesses are a good way to deal with low-cost needs. we have high costs, so mostly its large companies which can buy out smaller competition and can cherrypick their customers that are running these things here. they won’t be loosing sleep about not building that one barely profitable line because the opposition might.

And you’re thinking of taxis like they have in New York. Taxis in Santiago are just small busses that don’t necessarily run on a fixed route.