To be extremely simplistic, I left the states because I wanted to live in a place where everyone has access to basic health care.
I can report that the standard and quality of care in the UK is substantially superior to anything I had in the states, and I had access to the best insurance and hospitals in the country.
And you know what? The private insurance industry here is alive and well. It even has that nasty little pre-existing conditions clause going on, along with massive pre-approval paperwork and all the tedious stuff you experience back home.
But if you break a leg, or have an asthma attack in the middle of the night, you get a free ambulance ride to a hospital where they efficiently fix you without charge. In this town, they don’t even ask if you have the right to the services.
It isn’t necessary to believe that a single-payer system would work in the states (I don’t, at least not right now) to acknowledge that the health care system is fucked. Industry reform is on the horizon, and that is why there is so much frantic debate and propagandizing.
The question is, will the reform benefit you or the insurance industry? Someone is going to get something out of the quagmire.