Scan Medical Insurance - What exactly is it about having access to universal healthcare that some American's find so terrifying?

What exactly is it about having access to universal healthcare that some American's find so terrifying?

"The United States is the only industrialized democracy that does not ensure universal health care coverage, with an estimated 36 million Americans uninsured". Reuters as quoted by Yahoo News. And according to last month's National Geographic, the US pays (per person) at least twice the average of other nations to get less healthcare. The private medical insurance providers and the NHS both operate in the UK. So what's so terrible about what every other Western democracy has, that parts of the US doesn't want? Is it at all relevant that no country has opted to abandon universal healthcare in favour of the US model? Is it at all relevant that not a single UK party - from the extreme right to the loony left, advocates abolishing or even restricting the NHS? I genuinely don't get it and I'd welcome some illumination [without the cliched glib comments, pleasee]

Public Comments

It all about private medical insurance companies which Neocons are trying to protect, but they lost.
how about.....how are we, a nation of over 300 million with an open immigration policy and no mandatory national service, going to pay for something that is currently dragging down industrial nations with a fraction of our population, more natural resources per capita and restrictive immigration practices? it's sort of like asking "how can you be against 'nice?'" ... sorry, but you have to look at things a bit deeper in the real world. many of those other systems were put in place following World War 2....Barely 50 years later, would you say nations like England, France, Germany and Japan are significantly better off, about the same, or declining in terms of economy and industry? Can you name the medical innovations, treatment breakthroughs or pharmeceutical advances that came from those countries as opposed those that have come from the U.S. system?
We aren't being offered their model, but one none of them wanted. I think you are confusing 'access' with 'mandate' amongst other things.
Baton down the hatches, you're about to be lambasted by our colonial cousins who read 'social' as communist. That's why they don't want it. I asked this question a few months ago. One reason which came up in several answers I can paraphrase as "Those who can afford it have it, those who can't afford it or don't chose to buy it, don't deserve it, you only deserve what you work for".
I agree. Could we pay attention to what we're doing here, and quit worrying so much about who gets the credit for doing it? There is so much crap and misinformation out there about the healthcare bill, that people fear it simply because they don't really know what it says! How about educating the public??!!
Americans don't fear it . It is the people that run the country and business that don't like it . But in the end they all will find out that it will become not a bad idea . Just like when every body had ta start paying Social Security tax out of every pay check . Some 66 year ago . And ta day not one person says that they should do away with that tax. . So it will be with the health care tax . It will become one that people just expect to pay . To get out of having a big hospital bill that they got ta pay today / Sooner or latter ever body gets sick and has ta go to the hospital . And this time it will save all the inheritance money that the family is to get from being snatched up by the collectors to pay that monster hospital bill . Get My Idea .
This is a matter I have trouble getting my head round as well. It seems the health insurance providers are running a monopoly with people's lives being the price for being unable to afford to pay insurance premiums. The US contributors here all brand the people in favour of a health care as "Liberals", but they fail to make any other suggestions
Like all big government programs, they get used, abused, and explode debt, and drive America further into economic ruin. 38 Trillion worth of commitments have been made to Medicare (plan that takes care of senior citizens). Its all unfunded. That's before this healthcare plan. The UKs entire GDP for 2008 was $2.64 Trillion. Get it yet?
I am English but from research I have done (as it is something that always puzzled me too) I think it is to do with many Americans intense fear of socialism. Somewhere along the line the idea of having a state run healthcare system has got linked to socialist ideas. Obviously that is crazy but that is what seems to be behind the huge reluctance to have universal healthcare in the US. America is a country that traditionally has been very anti 'big government' in other words, they like the state to be as small as possible. Maybe this is because historically America was founded by people fleeing oppressive governments. But it does seem that some of the Republican propoganda against universal healthcare has got a little extreme.
Misinformation for the most part. They think universal health care will 'kill off grandma' for example. It's all rather reactionary.
Sadly, because most of us don't do any of our own research on anything and only follow allow with what other people tell us ... and most of the time the people we listen to have a reason to lie and mislead.
glad to have an opportunity to explain. I'm not afraid of what I'll get, I'm determined not to lose what I already have. If you have not experienced the American health care, you have no comparison. If you felt ill and wanted to go to your doctor tomorrow, could you? Well, I can and my private insurance, that I pay for, will pay the bill with a small co-pay. Tomorrow. If you don't care for the attitude of your doctor, can you just not go to that person anymore and go see someone else? and your insurance pay for it? Well, I can. If you don't like the answer your doctor gave you about something, from a mole on your face to a growth in the breast, can you just go home, call another physician for an appointment, second opinion as it were, without asking permission of someone? Well, I can. Can you see the difference between what I already have and what The Obama Administration is trying to 'Give' me?
At the end of the day its all politics. Tug of war between Democrats and Republicans. Thank god I am living in the UK.
I wonder what u_bin_called would have to say about the US government's use of the Pentagon System to stimulate the US Economy. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/PentagonSystem_Chom.html
They don't like a black man or white woman making important decisions for them.
this is as liberal as ill ever get, im all free healthcare no matter where it is. i give what i can to medical charities. i do not want to be the person on the deck and having a heart attack and being searched for my mediaid card before i get put into an ambulance. i have no probelm with anyone from wherever getting emergency medical aid here in britain, new procedures or experimental surgery. theres at least 75 standard practise surgical techniques the americans pay for privately that came of the battle feilds in ww1 ww2 korea and vietnam. the most common is plastic surgery. if it wasnt for a danish feild surgeon in ww2 gender surgery wouldnt be possible, especially female to male. thats possible because of a technique called a distal flap. i am against health migrants from eastern europe thats a different matter. the medical insurance companies have the americans so afraid of inadequate care that they think will come from free medical aid they shite themselves once its mentioned. doctors all sign the hypocratic oath, whether you pay for your treatment or not doctors are duty bound to do their best.
Here's the British lawyer to tell us how disgraceful America is. People come to USA for healthcare. Nobody goes to Britain to see if they can get NHS Healthcare. The Healthcare bill is over 2000 pages long. But he wants to know what's bad about it in a message that amounts to a Twit on Twitter. It will kill the health insurance business in USA. No policy writers means Zero health insurance in USA, not just 40 million people without insurance. It will drive most primary care doctors out of business. Compensation rates are too low. Today Wal-Mart stopped offerring Medicaid prescriptions fulfillment -- again compensation rates too low they were losing money. Obamacare has already started to do it harm. And then add in Obama-Immigration the next phase of the marxist destruction of USA and you've got an extra 12 million to deal with plus about 4 million new ones every year. The bad thing is the complete and total destruiction of USA. It's not terrifying, but it's a sad day for patriots of this country. It's more in sorrow than in anger that we survey the scene of this country's utter dissolution at the hands of a radical marxist. Many of us were involved in the Cold War. So this is the loss of everything we struggled to keep for America. It's the loss of a big part of our life's work, and the hands of a punk from southside Chicago. We are not terrified. We leave it for evil doers to be terrified, as they well should be, the wages of their conduct is well known. And your request for illumination could not be more disingenuous, so please don't tell me how genuine you are you limey legal lamebrain.
I'm British and I'm absolutely scared for them. The reason is national health service doesn't work! You forget to mention that here there is no-opt out of the nhs we have to pay whether we like it or not it is removed from our pay without consent. That is not what I call democracy. Your figure of 36 million uninsured in the US is completely inaccurate. It is closer to half that, and a lot may be between jobs or temporarily out of work. I wouldn't trust what Reuters say, it is watered down views not news. Americans already have access to state funded healthcare, it's called medicare and medicaid. Those are both costly enough for them to run and they don't want it to be expanded further. Health care in America works. They have the best doctors, the best r&d the best companies and the best hospitals and medical facilities. It is private healthcare that makes it work. You take that away and there is nothing to stop the US becomming like the UK with mrsa bugs, hospitals that are not cleaned with crumbling walls, bedsheets that are not cleaned because of the cost and trying to be green! And you ultimately have people dying while waiting for operations. Two of my relatives have been killed by the NHS due to negligence. They died sooner than they should have and in great pain. Another relative almost died while waiting upto a year for a triple heart by-pass operation. There's a reason the taxes are generally quite low in the States and they only pay out roughly 16% and that's because they don't have to fund a costly and expensive public health service that doesn't work. They have their own choice and freedom of which healthcare provider to choose and go with, or, to not choose one at all and take that risk. It is completely up to them and that's the way it should be. It is not the job of Government to run our lives for us. All they are there to do is defend the nation and provide basic cover for people who can't take care of themselves e.g. the disabled etc. I can asure you that there are many people that wish to get rid of the NHS in this country and replace it with the US Model or similar. I am one of them. I'd urge any Americans to fight against universal healthcare like their lives depended on it, because if they end up getting it, their lives will depend on it someday and that's what will kill them. The NHS is the Negligent Havoc System.