Hi, I'm Canadian. In my 32 years on this planet I've been to the hospital numerous times, including for a shattered kneecap, incredible stomach pain, a bruised tailbone, a window slamming on all fingers of both hands, and most recently to get some open wounds cleaned and covered. In all that time, I've paid $15 for crutches, and some dollars for parking, while receiving excellent care with very low wait times.
My grandmother had a friend come up from the States, and while walking along the boardwalk her ankle got stuck in a crack and she fell, and her glasses broke and embedded shards of glass in her face. When they took her to the hospital, they didn't even ask her what her name was, they just took her to the OR and removed the glass and sealed her back up. No questions, no cost. She later sued the city for a sizable amount not maintaining the sidewalk (yay Americans being the most litigious society on the planet; watch where you're stepping, idiot).
My grandparents went to the States and something happened to my grandfather, and they wouldn't even let him inside the hospital until my grandmother had paid for what they were going to do to him.
Universal healthcare has been rebranded by the GOP as socialist healthcare because of the intrinsically negative connotations raised by the word socialism in the United States. It is a sick political game that's designed to keep the health care industry in the hands of private companies who can charge 20x what a procedure actually costs, in order to make as much money off the sick and injured as possible. Insurance companies have very well paid doctors and lawyers on their payroll, whose sole job is to find reasons not to pay for your treatment, because it's better for them for you to die awaiting treatment than it is for them to spend $100,000 saving you, because treating you hurts their bottom line. I pay a little more in taxes, but not having to worry about choosing between saving my leg and keeping my house makes it absolutely worth it (and there are people in the States who have to make that choice).
What the Affordable Car Act does is try to minimize that exploitation. Among the legislation is the following:
- 90% of a health insurance company's expenditures must actually be spent providing care - and getting people to sign up for insurance doesn't count
- preventative care, like physicals and mammograms, is now free
- contraceptive care is now covered
- no denying coverage for pre-existing conditions
- no dropping coverage or jacking up the price of insurance because you had the gall to get sick
Because all of that adds expenses to the insurers, everyone has to be insured, to spread the risk pool around. Making everyone buy insurance is what funds the changes. Without forcing the risk pool to expand, all it would do is add costs with no way to pay for them other than jacking up everybody's premiums. The great thing about Universal care is that all of this happens automatically; you pay taxes, the government funds the hospitals, and if anything happens you're already paid for. And because privatized care is actually illegal up here, there's very little administrative overhead, so costs are kept low and more gets covered for the same amount of money. But since everything in America must be profit-driven, that's never going to fly down there, because the GOP has put it in people's minds that getting health care without paying an arm and a leg for it is somehow a bad thing.
Basically, Obamacare is the best they can do for now.
I'm given to understand you have a real bare bones safety net for common problems right now but it's inadequate.
