Quote from: smscotten on August 08, 2013, 02:52:20 AM

Quote from: hlynur on August 08, 2013, 02:32:45 AM

The ongoing discussion in US when Obama introduced national health insurance was totally irrational for me.

You may have missed some crucial information. The Affordable Care Act is not national health insurance, and it is not nationalized or socialized medicine. It is not even socialism, as people have claimed. It is a law requiring people to have health insurance at higher rates than ever before. The government is not providing that insurance. The same insurance companies that played a big role in getting us in this mess, now they get a lot more money than ever before. We do not have the option to decline their services or only sign up for a catastrophic high-deductible plan while paying for our regular services out of pocket. It is not a law to help people, it is a law to make enormous insurance and pharmaceutical corporations even wealthier than they are now.

If it were actual socialism, I would have supported it. I don't think that eg single payer is the right path, but I would have been completely OK with giving the "public option" a try to see what happens. The Affordable Care Act is just a scam to get the friends of Democrats richer. So, please understand that it's not just about Americans hating health or any such nonsense.

thanks for stuffing another hole of my dangerous half-knowledge. Tongue

didn't follow that in the news too deeply.

seen from that new perspective that is in fact an obvious case of companies getting their trimmed laws to profit from the people.
Man I'm glad that sector didn't get too much out of hand in germany. Though we have stuff like immunization schedules advised by governments, and lots of laws in favor of pharmaceutical companies to fill their pockets,
but at least health insurance runs really good and is paid directly by employer indepently from the loansystem. so like this employers would go on warpath if they have to pay more.
(as a freelancer health insurance is quite expensive though...around 200 depending on your business).
There's still a big difference between treatment with national or private health insurance but the overall standard is really good.
I just couldn't believe my eyes when i saw some documentary lately where dentists provided free treatment for american citizens because they simply couldn't afford it.

The more i think about it the more i doubt that a similar insurance system would function in the USA. I often underestimate the sheer scale of it as a country with its socioeconomic differences in many regions.