Reply #95: Australia

[sushi]

I haven't posted here for a long time, but healthcare reform and what happened in Cambridge (the professor and the policeman) are very interesting!

BO's healthcare reform is more than 1000 pages long. Surely the politicians who have to approve it need time to go over it carefully. You don't just sign something you haven't studied and discussed.
Why does BO want it passed so quickly?

I live in Australia and here we have Medicare AND private health insurance. Medicare is a must (everybody contributes a very small percentage of their salary to it), and it's your choice to have private health insurance or depend on the government, but with Medicare alone you CAN wait a very long time for treatment (definitely longer than you care to wait!), especially if it's considered not urgent (but it's very urgent for you), and dental care can make you wait a VERY long time.
Having private health insurance you don't have to wait. When I needed surgery, my doctor referred me to a surgeon. I choose the date, had my surgery, paid the bill and got more than half of it back from both health insurance and Medicare.
The government also has all the 'preventive medicine' ads to encourage citizens to take better care of themselves. By not smoking, not overeating, exercising and eating healthy foods people can keep themselves healthy and save the government money.

We have a small population (22 million) so it's easier to cover everybody. I think it won't be easy to take care of over 300 million people.