Which country has the best Health Care System?

[WMS]

And damnit...I'm posting this again.  I hate it when my posts are at the bottom of a page; no one sees them, then    Sorry to everyone who has seen it already.

I think the US has some good health care options, provided you have  a good job with a decent employer who offers you adequate benefits.  That said, work does need to be done to offer affordable insurance and medical care to those who currently can't afford it.  And yes, conservatives, there are those who can't afford it - telling them to "quit being lazy and get a job" doesn't help.  Take me, for instance:

Right now, I'm on my father's health insurance plan (go ahead, tell me I'm a drain on society for using someone elses money!), but if my parents weren't here, this is what my situation would be.

  --  I am a full-time college student because I want to get an education and have a chance for better employment.  My tuition is covered by a scholarship, so thankfully, that is out of the way.  There isn't any left over for books, which can easily run $600 per academic year.  I've got lots of bills on top of that: rent, water, electricity, phone, car (and unlike in cities, you really can't do much without a car in Kansas - so yes, I have to have it).  I have to buy groceries, and with my parents out of the picture, I'd have to pay for my car insurance (around $700 a year).

In order to make ends meet (as is), I have three jobs.  The state-owned research dairy that I work at pays me KS minimum wage: $6.00 an hour.  I write and do artwork for the school newspaper, which is a little under $20.00 for each submission.  I'm a substitute teacher on top of that, which pays $60 per day, but is hardly consistent and guaranteed work.

So there it is.  I can't afford health insurance.  Without my parents helping out, I'd be screwed.  That's when it would be nice for a basic public health system to be available - if I needed my appendix removed, I would be horrified to have to pay a $15,000 bill for them to slice me up and bed me down for two days.  This is how people get stuck in a rut; they quit school to work more and never are able to climb the class ladder and escape from poverty/lower-middle class status.  --

No, it isn't society's job to support those who can't support themselves - if you want to be insincere, cold, calculating, and strictly capitalist about it, it probably doesn't bother you to see a poor elderly person die alone.  It was their fault, right?  They should have worked.  They were a drain on society.

Other democracies, like the UK, have collectively voted to be more generous with their taxes, and I think that's fine.  They don't mind giving a certain part of their paychecks up to make certain that everyone receives basic medical care.  The US hasn't made that decision because we're still full of a lot of people who say, "that isn't my job."

They're right - it isn't their job.  I would hope, though, that at some point we could agree that some basic public health services might be necessary in the US, funded by a flat tax, perhaps.  Some call the public health system socialism.  That's fine - call me a socialist, too, if you want; I'm not big into labels, though, so it won't hurt my feelings any.  While some call it socialism, I call it charity - a society enlightened enough to give up a fraction of their earnings to make sure that everyone is given basic care.  It doesn't have to mean the demise of private practices; if you could afford the better care, then by all means, use it.  It would mean lending everyone a hand, and somewhere that logic has been lost on a lot of people in the US.

Well said! We can do better than what we have now. I think I said as much in that thread Huckleberry Finn just linked to...