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Originally Posted by Baltar  I think if the US didn't spend (read: waste) so much money on its military, we would be able to spend it on government sponsored healthcare. However, I wouldn't support increases in taxes to achieve this. One of the reasons I'd never want to live in Europe is the insane taxes. |
We also have minimum wage, and a generally higher standard of living.
I've lived in both places.
I'm quite happy paying a reasonable level of taxes.
The problem with expensive healthcare is that it doesn't encourage preventative care. If I feel sick, I go to the doctor. I get a smear test done every year. If something goes wrong, it is much more likely to be picked up.
Whereas in America, people would try their own methods of getting better, by buying illegal drugs, trying home remedies - some of which may work, but not always, and were frequently applied in a superstitious way that completely undermined the point. This isn't to attack Americans - the people I was living with were on the poverty line, and they had no choice. But it scares me when someone will try and sweat a fever out of their young child when they have a temperature of 103+, rather than take them to the doctor.
National Healthcare is not perfect. There are waiting lists, overworked and underpaid doctors, and many other issues.
But I'm not particularly enamoured of the US version either, after being misdiagnosed on one occasion, and charged almost $2000 for the privilege, and correctly diagnosed but given the wrong kind of medicine for another (antibiotics don't work on viruses, ffs!).
Another part of the problem is that once you have a problem that prevents you from working, you lose insurance and income. There doesn't seem to be an easy method in the US for dealing with that - whilst I assume there is a welfare system, most people I knew refused to go on it, even if crippled with agonising health issues, because they saw it as leeching, or something.
I am not suggesting that my experience was universal to the US (I was in a fairly impoverished area of Ohio), but I am sure it was more than just an isolated incident.