If he had fought this hard for Single-Payer...

[OwnedByCats]

134. I lived in the UK

The NHS system was great, and there is NO reason why they can do it and we can't. There is absolutely no excuse for us having this sorry system we have right now except that our government does not have their priorities straight. They spend nauseating amounts of our tax money on things they shouldn't be spending it on. Great Britain charges a tax (which is affordable for everyone btw), you see a doctor, no charge. You go to hospital, no charge. Operation, no charge. Dental and eye you pay for but at a tiny fraction of the cost we pay here for dental and eye care, I never had trouble affording my dental bills and I wasn't rich by any stretch. The only thing I had to pay for outside of the tax was for prescriptions, at an extremely cheap copay, standard amount regardless of drug or quantity. If you're on meds you need daily for a long time, they can prescribe you a years worth for the one time cost but even if you had to do it monthly, it wouldn't be a burden at all. Weirdly, even though I could afford the small copay for my birth control, it was still free - for everyone. You can go "private" as they call it and either pay out of pocket or use an insurance plan like BUPA. However, it's going to be the higher upper income people who will go that route. As far as quality of care, I could not complain since my husband had stage 3 Hodgkin's lymphoma and they went above and beyond for him - he's been in remission for 13 years. We didn't go bankrupt either, but we surely would have here. I found a great doctor for me too. Yes, there are waiting lists for some things like hip replacements - but what would you rather have? Waiting a few months or not being able to get it at all because you can't cover what your insurance won't, or getting it but losing all your assets to bankruptcy?

As far as horror stories, I never heard anything happen there that I never heard happen here. Except here it happens more often and some have the pleasure of paying for it dearly.

I'm tired of the excuses. If little old England can make it work, we sure can. Just cut the spending on, oh I don't know, bombing other nations? That would only be the tip of the iceberg. It's time the USA started investing in the health of their citizens, for all. Sure if the 1% want to keep their insurance they can, but the rest of us can't keep doing it the rate we are going.