Or, not.
As an N+1, my own after-hours experience after stupid hand injury on a vacation in the UK many years ago, echoes this. It wasn't bright and shiny and beautifully decorated, but the hospital I visited (for a tetanus shot, mostly) was efficient, effective, and (also to my surprise) free of copayment.
Was it being paid for? Yes. It was funded for as a societal insurance pool by the UK taxpayers. And this is a bad idea because …?
Most of the horror stories that get told about the NHS in America get told via the same folk who thought that Medicare was socialism and every expansion of any public assistance to help people get access medical care has been a descent into a commie tyranny. They're the folk who insisted that the ACA was the irrevocable step toward a collectivist destruction of freedom, America, Christianity, and civilization as we know it.
What is a reasonably expected public service? The poster below gives a nice thought exercise. And the doctor's story below gives a good example.
Originally shared by +Craig Froehle:
Imagine you're traveling in a foreign country and you get mugged. The asshole stole your phone and your wallet and a nice watch. You find the nearest police station and go in to report the crime. After a few moments of listening to your story, the officer holds up his hand and says, "How would you like to pay?" You look at him. "Pay? For what?" you say. "For the investigation…for the time and materials we'll expend helping you." You sit there, dumbfounded. Why should you have to pay the police to investigate a crime against you? Isn't policing a public service??
That is pretty much the experience that people living in countries with universal, single-payer healthcare systems have when visiting the US and finding they need medical services.
We should move to a single-payer system, or at least a system where everyone has at least a basic level of healthcare access without having to deal with insurance companies or billing hassles.
An American doctor experiences an NHS emergency room
You know it’s going to be one of those days when one of the first tweets on vacation inquires about the closest hospital. Victor, one of my 11-year-olds, had something in his eye courtesy of a big …
