THIS is what Healthcare is all about ...

[BlueMTexpat]

120. Thank you so much for posting this.

I am so sorry for your loss. JeffR was a VERY special person to us all.

During this horrible period, the last thing that either of you needed was to be stressed out by health care costs. I am so glad for you that you live in a civilized country. That doesn't help you miss JeffR any less, I know. But it at least spared the extra grief and anxiety that facing a mountain of medical debt would have brought.

My own husband and I had a recent spate of health scares in the US: breast cancer for me and a triple bypass for him. While I generally reside abroad and I must pay (a reasonable premium) for private insurance there, I also pay Medicare & supplement premiums, so all US-based medical costs were either covered under Medicare or reimbursed by our supplemental coverage. We had excellent care and treatment in the US, no waiting periods, and no issues with coverage whatsoever. I am very happy to say that we are both healthy today.

So yes, in the US, it is possible to have access to healthcare that is somewhat comparable to Canada's with Medicare. Unfortunately, one must be 65 for coverage (you are likely younger, my dear). IMO, Medicare should simply have been extended to all Americans instead of our legislators giving in to insurance companies. I fault Rahm Emanuel and his ilk most grievously for the public option's never even being on the table. But at least Obamacare is an improvement over the former disastrous situation. While I have NO hope for what passes for MSM in the US and find today's GOP to be, for the most part, terminally unreasonable, I will always and forever have a hard time forgiving certain Dems for a) not standing up to the lies and b) running away from Obama & Obamacare.

Medicare is a success and that is exactly why RW GOPers and their friends want to dismantle it. It will literally have to be done over my dead body. I will never give in otherwise. None of us should.