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Originally Posted by Halk
As I understand things in the USA there is very basic healthcare for all. On top of that anyone can purchase a separate plan, although most people buy into corporate schemes which are significantly cheaper.
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There is not basic healthcare for all. There is basic healthcare offered for the most impoverished, after much hassles with forms & paperwork to prove they are impoverished. This may or may not include dental or vision services, depending on the state. If, however, they have a job, that "right" to healthcare vanishes--they either get it through their jobs (I pay about 30% of my wages for health insurance for my family), or they go without.
I get to choose between healthcare, and the ability to afford rent in a neighborhood where car windows don't get smashed regularly. (I suppose there are safe and friendly neighborhoods at my current rent level... that are so far from my job in downtown San Francisco that I'd lose the same level of money paying for transportation.) So far, I've chosen health care; next year, I think I'll go the other way, and hope nobody in the family is badly damaged by that choice.
Emergency health services are available to everyone, at the cost of possible bankruptcy later. Hospitals have to supply it, but they bill you; if you can't pay, you can go bankrupt. Between half and 2/3 of the bankruptcies in the US are caused by medical bills.
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Americans do not view health care in the same way that Brits and Europeans do. Over here I think we view healthcare as a basic human right and the system in the USA to be mind boggling. Americans view health care in the same way as material posessions, in that it is something to strive to earn money for in order to purchase. I think that's probably exaggerating things a little, to say all Americans feel that way.
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A lot of us are boggled that health care isn't considered the same as education of our children--something that used to be reserved for the wealthy elite, and is now extended to the general public because we have the resources & technology to allow it, and the nation as a whole is enhanced by having it freely available.
We are forced to think of health care as a commodity of the wealthy, which is offered to the less-wealthy if they're willing to make sacrifices to get it, and offered to the poor as charitable hand-me-downs which may not fit well, but at least is better than nothing.