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RE: What if cheeseburgers were like healthcare?
If you assume the burger joints are private enterprises you are correct, but then if you are trying to provide a free service, why would you have a profit making entity supplying that service; why would government not ony susidize the recipients of the burger, but subsidize private enterprise too. It doesnt work, because its structurally incoherent.
Supply needed services without a profit motive, and it all starts to work well.
Does the US government own cattle? Corn farms? does the government grow wheat? Does it own operate meat packing plants? Does the government have restaurants in every town?
No, the government is not really capable of such things, the government acquires goods and services by contracting with private enterprises.
The government operates printing presses to make money but did you know that they buy the paper for the money from a private manufacturer?
Without a profit motive who would take the contracts?
This is not a service but a product but can you provide an example of that in the US?
Non-profit does not automatically mean government provided, there are mutual societies, public benefit corporations etc. But even if the government does provide burgers, healthcare and schooling, what relevance does the supply chain have? So the buns come from a private bakery, the mark-up on the assembled burger is still zero and a government has significantly higher purchasing power than any individual restaurant chain.
Why limit the conversation to the US, that seems like you are saying just because US culture has not managed public services properly, that it's an impossibility, but why would that be the case?
Also a product like a burger, becomes a part of a service provision if it is offered as a benefit, playing semantics with products/services does not prove a point. Schools supply books, hospitals bandages etc.
Textbooks are a great example of something that is overpriced because of government subsidies. The kids who use the books don't pay for them, if they did then they wouldn't cost so much. A textbook like a school uses usually cost like $80 or more, if everyone bought them themselves and there was a free market for textbooks they would be priced more along the line of things like notebooks and pencils which are incredibly cheap.
My example is about the US, if you have a great example from another country I would be interested but it may not apply here.