Healthcare funded by general taxation

[ethelthefrog]

I'm deliberately starting a separate thread for this, as I don't want to talk politics in Skip's thread about his recent heart attack.

But.

His comment about not qualifying for medicare/medicaid got me thinking about the kinds of things we heard in the UK about what people in the US were hearing about health provision in general and nationalised health provision in particular.

In the UK, if someone needs open-heart surgery, and they stand a good chance of surviving the operation, they will get open-heart surgery and the NHS will pay for it, in its entirety, including surgeon, anaesthetist, doctors, nurses, beds, drugs, aftercare, and so on. The patient will talk to their general practitioner, and a hospital booking will be made, and the rest just happens. Money isn't mentioned once.

Obviously, it's not utopia. The NHS is perennially under-staffed and under-funded, so cases are queued up in order of medical need, but you are, generally, seen within six months. The quality of care is, on the whole, excellent (in my experience), and is well worth the money I pay in income tax every month.

Not all treatments are available on the NHS, and not all drugs are available on the NHS either (usually those drugs that cost a lot and extend life by 25 minutes). On the other hand, everyone is covered, and all UK citizens have access to free healthcare from conception to death, even people with 'pre-existing conditions' (my wife has chronic asthma, and does not get cover from private healthcare schemes for asthma-related problems, which would have cost us a large, and growing, fortune over the last ten years).

Given my experience with the NHS, I was wondering what sort of coverage it received in the US, and why government-funded healthcare is supposed to be so bad.

Sorry for rambling...

Paul.

[skirted_in_SF]

I have heard the same story from someone I know who is from Canada.

and why government-funded healthcare is supposed to be so bad.

Because all the manly men and womanly women moved here from Europe generations ago and feel they can take care of themselves and look down on those who don't feel the same way.