yes. but it makes health insurance a non-issue for companies. we don't compete over it & we're not scared of loosing it with our jobs.

the American system forces the individual to be responsible for their health (smoker? that'll cost) and keeps workers focussed on pleasing their employers.

yeah, individuals are responsible. in the UK it's (smoker? that'll cost everyone). people don't pay for the costs they create.

sorry, I didn't want this to turn "political" (I don't think this is the right setting), and not for one minute do I think the NHS is the be all and end all, but for someone in my position (a person with a serious medical condition) I don't think I could survive (financially and probably health-wise) in the US.

So I'm glad that I live in a country which contributes as a whole towards the nations health.

Update: LPTS says we should get political, so lets.

It's a comment on the disgusting and sad state of politics in America that saying "Everyone who is sick should get care" is a political football rather than a noncontroversial statement of an obvious truth.

I think we should take rich people, steal large percentages of their money, with guns or threats of jail, if necessary, and use it to buy medicine for anyone who needs it.

Underneath all the bullshit (including the libertarian bullshit that will be presently downmodding me), the reason Americans don't have universal healthcare (which, despite the duckspeak from the media, is better at all measures except treating the very rich) is pure racism. The same racist fucks who put George Bush in office will go absolutely batshit at the idea of their money being used to help people that aren't as white as they are. These racist sentiments are then manipulated by the media for the benefit of a controlling elite. This is the real reason the US lacks a social safety net.

Look at what you're saying. I would be broke or dead in America, but let's not get political about it. No, lets get political about it.

Every option for self employed people suck. The entrepreneurial culture suffers because a person with a preexisting condition and a job can't quit to start up a company. This is very stupid and we should all be very pissed off about it.

In the US, children get medical insurance on their parent's plan and then, when they grow up, can buy their own coverage before that lapses.

So if you are medically unlucky, it's OK, many people pay into the insurance system, and then the medically unlucky people get money back out.

It's very similar to everyone pays taxes for medical insurance, except that instead of one government medical insurance company we have different ones that compete with each other and subscription is voluntary.

There are various important details. Maybe we get some of them wrong. But the general idea is OK and wouldn't screw you over in principle.

This sounds good except for when Insurance Companies get so good at determining who exactly is likely to be "medically unlucky" that those people are effectively prevented from getting any healthcare at all.

This is a very real problem for entrepreneurs who want to buy their own healthcare, and also for very small companies. I know of one company that was basically prevented from hiring an extremely talented individual because that individual was flagged as a high risk to be "medically unlucky", and if she joined the company than everyone in the company would be ineligible for healthcare - in this particular instance if you're less than five people than you can't buy a group policy with one of those five being a high-risk individual.

So these high risk individuals are either able to join a large company where they can be covered in a large group plan (better hope you're a skilled worker, since very low-end employers have incentives to hire part-timers or contractors to avoid paying benefits), or they have no coverage and go to the emergency room when catastrophic problems emerge, at great cost to the taxpayers who pay for those emergency rooms which (for quite good moral reasons) don't turn away patients who can't afford visits.

Maybe this is one of the things you grouped under "various important details", but I think it's more than a detail - denying coverage to risky people is going to be an inherent consequence of introducing profit motives into health insurance.

I don't necessarily think socialized medicine is the answer, given the inefficiencies it introduces. The best middle ground might be greater regulation of insurance companies to prohibit them from denying coverage to sick individuals. But given the risks on each side, I would frankly much rather err in the direction of too much socialization.

the high risk individual could have already had individual coverage, and kept it, and been paid a higher salary to compensate for less benefits.

This is Objectivism gone awry. A society of Ayn Randians will ultimately face challenges that leads to its collapse.

I'm not an Objectivist.

I think this is Ayn Rand hate gone awry. You don't know anything about me. And all I really said here is people should be responsible for themselves; that's not some crazy fringe idea, and it's not limited to Objectivists.

And I said it specifically about economics and smoking. Smoking is a choice. I think if people want to damage their health by smoking they should be allowed to, but they should have to pay for it. Do you really think that's crazy and would destroy society?

And your view is exactly why the USA is 37th on The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems, below countries like Colombia (GDP $337.286 billion), Chile (GDP $163.792 billion) and Costa Rica (GDP $56.777 billion). The USA's GDP is $13.794 trillion. At least you beat the communists (Cubans) by three places...