As I said, there are pros and cons. Everyone should be aware everything has cost, and I’m certainly aware many people feel a product is worth a given cost, that’s how transactions happen in the first place, on all levels.
As I said I might do this more tomorrow when I’m not so tired but I should put things in perspective.
People seem to be creating myths about persons dying on the streets because they cannot afford health care.
The “big three” when it comes to public healthcare in the United States are Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA.
Medicare is basically old people, when you reach the age of 65 (67 for people born after 1960 iirc) you begin receiving medicare benefits which is basically government health insurance.
Medicare also covers people with permanent disabilities like blindness and also covers people with renal kidney failure that require dialysis regardless of age.
Medicare also starts covering prescription drugs in 2006 (big bad fascist Bush passed that law in 2003, which despite complaints is the first EVER such program in U.S. history.)
Medicaid is health insurance for the poor. To qualify you have to have a monthly income below X and also have a certain asset level. In some cases if you have low income but high assets you will have to sell off assets to reach the medicaid level if you really need medicaid support.
Some people seem to think you shouldn’t own Jaguars and Bentleys and be receiving Medicaid.
Federal medicaid is also fairly non-inclusive, there is a pretty restrictive list of people that are “guaranteed” Medicaid. It is rather up to State governments to decide how large the scope should be. Medicaid works by basically disbursing money to the State and the State decides how it should be spent and on who it should be spent.
The VA is fairly self explanatory, they provide medical services (as well as loans, scholarships, tons of things really) for Veterans and families of veterans.
Medicare provides services to 40m people, and Medicaid provides services to 42.4m. The VA provides services to a smaller number of people but the VA lists 70m people as eligible for medical services (which is probably where the “larger than the UK” figure comes from.)
Furthermore I should mention that 75.9% of the employed population has health insurance through their employer.
Of the employed that are not covered 37.1% are not covered because their employers do not offer a plan, 46.4% are not covered because the don’t want to be in the employer health insurance plan (basically meaning they don’t want to pay into it each month.) So believe it or not many people who are offered employer health insurance don’t bite (and typically insurance through your employer IS much cheaper than private health insurance.)