[user104658]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

And how long do you think the NHS is going to be viable?It’s unsustainable.
It’ll have died on its arse by the end of the century.It’s inevitable with an ever rising population.The whole model was designed for there to be less need for it over time not more.
There’s only so far you can raise taxes and throw money at it before it outgrows the ability to fund it.
Then we’ll all be on some kind of insurance based system.We’re just not there yet.

These are problems that could and should be tackled if there was any inclination to do so, though. The NHS could function perfectly well if it was well managed... There is no real government drive to do so. It would be funded perfectly well if it wasn't horrendously over-used because of people not understanding their own health or knowing how to properly care for themselves (e.g. running to the GP for every cough and cold, or mismanaging hydration with the flu and ending up in A&E, or calling ambulances / going to hospital for all sorts of minor injuries that could be patched up at home). But there's no real focus on improving that, either.

It is sort of a massive hulking beast that would do better if broken down further into smaller scale local (but cooperative) health services but, the fact remains, if it wasn't for the government quite clearly INTENDING to sell it off by making it seem unmanageable, it could still be a well oiled and exemplary health care system with a few tweaks.

The taxation thing is another issue of course. People don't seem to realise just how much is paid out in insurance based systems. If the government whacked 2% onto everyone's taxes and gave it all to a (well managed) NHS it would do wonders for the service but people would go nuts over it - apparently not realising that private insurance would cost most normal working people a LOT more than a 2% tax increase, and along with it, always the risk of it going wrong and ending up bankrupt or simply unable to pay for certain treatments . These things do happen in the US. And there are far more examples of the poor, elderly and vulnerable falling through the cracks... Especially when it comes to things like mental health.

Its obviously incorrect to call the US a **** hole. It IS a great country with many great things going for it. But it's health care record, for a first world country, is pretty shocking and varies wildly from state to state in direct correlation with wealth. There are some states where infant mortality rates are nearly 1 in 100 which is as bad as some literally starving third world nations.

So yeah... If you're university educated, middle-earning-and-upward then the US can be a great place to live. My wife's uncle and his wife recently moved semi-permanently to Texas (plan to stay for 10 years then play it by ear) and they absolutely love it - but she's a renowned University lecturer with multiple PhD's and a published author and they bought a 5 bedroom house with several acres of land / a swimming pool, etc...

It's not quite the same story for another guy I know, who came over on a University exchange for a year when I was at Uni. Even though he IS a graduate - his life now basically involves plastering on a fake grin as a waiter, because he knows that if he doesn't get tipped well he can't pay his rent and will be on the street. And if he gets ill, he's ****ed.

Its a system that works well for some, at the expense of many others. And no, that's not uncommon in the modern world... It's basically how the entire global economy works... But supposedly the greatest country in the world failing to care for its own native-born citizens on something as basic as fundamental healthcare is a total shambles.