(no subject)
When I was in Japan I had to go the emergency room twice. Once was because I had a case of food poisoning from eating liver sashimi. The other incident was when my girlfriend at the time had a bladder infection.
When my girlfriend went in and had herself checked out we waited for all of 45 minutes for a walk in visit. The doctor gave us medication and had her blood work checked out. During this time the desk women kept telling us "It is going to cost a lot of money because we did not have insurance that was applicable in Japan." The doctor gave us some medicine and we went to pay our bill. $80.00.
The second time, I was in terrible pain and could barely get up and stand. It was the same song and dance. I was given medicine after they checked me out. The process took an hour, and this was at 1:00am in the morning. Cost: $120.00
Both of these prices were without any form of insurance.
Do I believe this kind of system can be replicated in the United States? Absolutely not. As a people we are not efficient and we do not pay attention to numbers very well. Every government bureaucracy balloons and their budgets go out of control. I can say this because I have worked for Japanese and American companies over the last 13 years and I have eyes and ears.
Trying to implement a single payer system will be disastrous. Moreover, you have the option still in Japan to purchase private insurance.
The current Obama-care plan forces you into a government run option for health insurance if you change insurance plans and they deem that it is does not conform to government standards. The government will have direct and real time access to your bank account. It is also filled with pork for "community groups" (read: ACORN).
A better direction of resourses would be to initiate tort reform. Of course...this is never going to happen. There is too much money and political capitol involved for anybody to do this...