The US is sick

I've been reading this post - by a (from my perspective fundamentalist) religious American who moved to Canada and saw the light on universal health care. 

I started to wonder why I had been so opposed to government mandated Universal Health care. Almost every western country in the world has Universal Insurance of some kind, except the USA. Here in Canada, everyone was covered. If they worked full-time, if they worked part-time, or if they were homeless and lived on the street, they were all entitled to the same level of care if they had a medical need. People actually went in for routine check-ups and caught many of their illnesses early, before they were too advanced to treat. People were free to quit a job they hated, or even start their own business without fear of losing their medical coverage. In fact, the only real complaint I heard about the Universal Health Care from the Canadians themselves, was that sometimes there could be a wait time before a particular medical service could be provided. But even that didn’t seem to be that bad to me, in the States most people had to wait for medical care, or even be denied based on their coverage. Depending on where one lived and how rural the area was, one's access to care could be limited, and that was regardless of what country one lived in. The only people guaranteed immediate and full service in the USA, were those with the best (and most expensive) health coverage or wads of cash they could blow. In Canada, the wait times were usually short, and applied to everyone regardless of wealth. If you were discontent with the wait time (and had the money to cover it) you could always travel out of the country to someplace where you could demand a particular service for a price.

Its great to see someone finally learning the truth, its just a  shame they have to leave the country to see it!

The comments are also good, especially from other fundamentalists who say things like "Food for thought" and there is a fair bit of discussion about aspects of the new 'Obamacare'. One of the key points for me is that public health should not be a for-profit business. This was made , was one made by a fellow Australian:

The USA government actually spends more on healthcare per capita than almost any other country, certainly more than countries with centralised public health systems. Don't ask me how, as an Australian with a public health care system it baffles me too. It's just that privatised, insurance-based healthcare is ridiculously inefficient.

Another commentator noted,

[Universal Health Care] generally works because a single payer, i.e., the gov, isn't in it to make a profit. The health insurance industry as well as for-profit hospitals and clinics are responsible for the high cost of health care in this country

[...]

As long as we allow corporations to own our politicians these problems will be will us because they are only interested in their profits, not in the health and welfare of the citizens of this country.

Poorly phrased, but so true.