Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reposting a comment I made in another thread here: But public healthcare service is much worse in my experience. I'm forced to be a part of a public system but I'd very much prefer to be able to pay private insurance and use private hospitals. We have private hospitals, but the government insurance isn't accepted there (because the law and the system doesn't allow it) and that makes it prohibitively expensive to me e…
As someone who lives in the US, its frustrating to me that many people will read your anecdote and simply think that any public funding of healthcare equals communism, "death panels", delayed care, and abysmal levels of service. My anecdote is that here in the US, if you lose your job and find yourself without insurance, you can literally go bankrupt from a relatively minor injury or sickness due to the extreme cost…
I never wanted to imply that private services are always high quality, but there definitely is more motivation and it shows - while there might be a considerable portion of bad hospitals in the US, here are literally just a handful below average ones (compared to the US) in my country and it's impossible to get there legally.
Of course low quality hospital beats no hospital, but you should be able to fix that with some kind of mandatory insurance that is state-sponsored if the person is poor, for example, no? Don't forget that I'm reacting to a comment praising public hospitals from control reasons, not about absence of social safety.
I don't understand why people in the US can't or don't pay their insurance themselves instead of through their employer, though. Seems like a huge risk - well you described it.