Heavy question, I know. This is not intended to be political, please leave “taxes/government evil” out of it, I’m interested in a pragmatic view.
Infamously the US has mostly private health care, but we also have Medicare and -aid, the ACA, and the VA.
Most other nations have socialized health care in some format. Some of them have the option to have additional care or reject public care and go fully private.
Realistically, what are the experiences with your country’s health care? Not what you heard, not what you saw in a meme, not your “OMG never flying this airline again” story that is the exception while millions successfully complete uneventful and safe journey story. I’m also not interested in “omg so-and-so died waiting for a test/specialist/whatever”. All systems have failures. All systems have waits for specialists unless you’re wealthy, and wealth knows no borders. All systems do their best to make sure serious cases get seen. It doesn’t always work, but as a rule they don’t want people dying while waiting.
Are the costs in taxes, paycheck withholding (because some people pay for social health care out of paychecks but don’t call it a tax), and private insurance costs worth it to you?
We pay about $300 a month in premiums for healthcare policy provided by the employer. We’re limited to 4.2k out of pocket but nothing at all is covered but the annual physician before that (medications are seperate and always have at least a copay).
Good years it’s fine, but a few years ago I had a skin growth they scraped to test for cancer and got billed $2,000 after insurance’s “negotiated” price that took a nice chunk of savings to cover. I’d gladly switch to any other system than the one we have here in the US…
I have a life threatening chronic illness. Imagine every year is a bad year.
That is my biggest fear health wise. Losing $7,800 in premiums and out of pocket plus copays for medicine and office visits would be painful to say the least