Sorry but health care should be free and universally available. The fact it isn't so in America is to your nations detriment.. Welfare bums and the much more deserving low paid or part time workers should be looked after.
However... social provision should come with strings- you get welfare you do civic volunteer service so many hours a week!! No (volunteer) work no welfare money. Over here you can sit on welfare for years without any problems from 'the system'. As a working man it does annoy a little..
Paul, health care in this country is available, it just isn't free. Because we take a capitalist approach to medicine we have some of the best medical treatment available in the world. Yes, we have our problems and issues but I'll put it up against any other nations any day of the week.
The problem here in America is the cost of health care. I was hospitalized for 36 hours a few years ago when I had mono. I didn't receive any special treatment aside from bringing my potassium levels back up to normal because of dehydration, and a visit or two from a specalist. The bill to my insurance company was $32,000.00.
About two years after that I had some outpatient surgery done. I had a lump in my breast as a result of a condition called gynocomastia. It was uncomfortable but by no means life threatening. In countries with socialized medicine I doubt I would have had the procedure. Here in America I was able to get it removed to the tune of $14,000.00. Luckily, my insurance policy at the time was wonderful.
The problem isn't our insurance system. Despite its problems it's not bad. The problem is our medical system as a whole. In order to stay afloat it needs to charge people like me with insurance exorbant amounts to cover those who don't have insurance and have diffuculty paying it back.
The real problem at hand is why is spending on medicine so out of this world?
If the masses want to socialize medicine then socialize the medicine for every American and tax everybody accordingly. Instead what's proposed is a system whereby those of us who are at the higher end of the spectrum will fund and support those at the lower end. So a group of people will be given a privalege, and those funding the privaledge will not be afforded the same.
