By Delia Lloyd | Politics Daily
It would appear that we’re in for a major legislative battle over the future of American health care. And while it’s still not exactly clear what the administration’s plan will look like, it does seem that — Rahm Emanuel notwithstanding — the president is committed to having a public option as part of the package.
The specter of "socialized medicine" looms large in some corners of the American public, inspiring an almost Orwellian fear. In practical terms, however, most Americans have little familiarity with universal health care. As an American who’s lived in the U.K. for the past three years, I’ve relied exclusively on the National Health Service (NHS) for all of my family’s medical needs. In what follows, I enumerate some of the differences, large and small, that I’ve encountered across the two systems. My purpose is not to advocate for one form of insurance over another, although our experience with the NHS has been largely positive. Rather, I hope to shed light on the kinds of things Americans could expect on a day-to-day basis were our country to move toward a more British-style system:
1. You don’t pay to see a doctor. Whether you’re treating a migraine or replacing a heart valve, you don’t pay a dime. Ever. This may sound great — and it is — but it’s also very disorienting if you’re used to pulling out your insurance card or haggling with your insurance company over exactly what percentage of your bill it will cover for a given procedure. I remember the elaborate accounting gymnastics my husband and I went through at our last jobs over precisely how much to allocate to our Flexible Spending Account each year so we could avoid being taxed on things like eyeglasses, dental visits and the like. No more. And in that sense — and contrary to many of the criticisms about socialized medicine — it’s a much less bureaucratic system simply because there’s less paperwork.
MUCH MORE HERE: http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/910
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