San Francisco does have universal healthcare. I’m not sure of the details of how it works, and I’m sure it’s not a perfect system, but my best friend spent the last couple years of his life in and out of hospitals and the City picked up the whole bill, so I’m very grateful for that. I assure you all he didn’t consider the City that provided him with comfort and dignity in his last years “failed”.
I know there’s an extra tax on all restaurant checks that goes to some sort of healthcare fund.
Your friend probably was treated at SF General Hospital, which provides treatment free of charge for those who can prove financial need. On the other hand, SF General is out of network with private insurance plans, and their ER prices are the highest in the city – again, if you can’t prove financial need.
That is to help the restaurant pay for medical insurance for their own employees, as mandated by the city.
Not charging people who meet a certain definition of “financial need” for hospital treatment is not quite the same as providing universal healthcare.
The public hospitals in NYC provide sliding scale fees in clinics for outpatient and preventive treatment and prescriptions in addition to hospitalization for those who do not qualify for and/or cannot afford medical insurance. Immigration status does not matter and even visitors to NYC are eligible. I’m not sure that I think it qualifies as “universal healthcare” but it’s closer than places that provide only emergency treatment to everyone.
I read that this has changed in the last few years, due to bad publicity of course.
No, SF General doesn’t just provide emergency care, my friend had multiple surgeries and lengthy ICU stays with subsequent followups there. As far as how “universal” it is, I don’t know exactly what their cutoff for “financial need” is. (My friend was working class, but not homeless or indigent)
Sorry if my phrasing made it sound like I was saying that, I wasn’t. It is a very full service hospital.
I don’t know the details of how much and when the hospital charges. I was trying to get across that what SF has is not universal health care as @Thing.Fish claimed, but it does have this hospital which fills in a lot of gaps.
It’s hard to tell if you are responding to me - but I wasn’t saying SF General only provides emergency care, just that there are places where only emergency care is provided regardless of ability to pay.
roderick–I was there at 5:04 when the Quake hit, and it was more than “transportation problems”–you don’t remember the blackouts for 2 days?
I remember when I lived there when 2 different bike riders killed innocent pedestrians, and weren’t even prosecuted, and being a self-righteous (non-card driver) one killer claimed to be the victim!! And now you have Mayor blaming string of shoplifting attacks on stores not having more security :-0
No worries, I wasn’t sure if you were responding to me either!
And how many drivers killed innocent bicyclists during that time and weren’t prosecuted? 
In order to prosecute someone (bike rider or auto driver…) the prosecution has to prove gross negligence and/or dangerous driving, or some other crime. If there is not enough evidence to convict, they won’t do it.
one 2-wheeled killer admitted he was going too fast and AIMED at crowd. And car drivers ARE prosecuted because they’re not “environmentally correct” in the People’s Republic
Who exactly are you talking about? If you were referring to Chris Bucchere, he was prosecuted. If we are talking the Critical Mass events, though there was definitely some tension and violence in San Francisco, I can’t find where any pedestrians were ever killed.
This is Whataboutism on a major scale. You really mean it is okay for cyclists to kill pedestrians as cyclists have been killed by motorists?
Off the Embarcadero while I was up there in SF, one elderly lady (whom I met) was injured and one small dog killed by cyclists riding on the sidewalk in a rather short period. And there is a bike lane. I admit I never heard of a cyclist killing anyone, but I was only there for about a year. (The walk down to Caltrain along the Embarcadero is quite pleasant, but yeah, lots of high speed cyclists using the sidewalk instead of the bike lane. Usually on “fixies”. One almost hit me, even.)
No doubt that motorists are a danger to cyclists, but unless you are a little kid, stay off the sidewalk.