I just can not get my head around the fact people in America have what has to be the worst health care system in a developed country I have seen.

I live in Aus, yes I pay a medicare levy, yes I have private health cover that I have had from birth as my parents had private health cover and upon earning my own money I got my own cover.

But here is how it works.
The government sets a price for all procedures.
So when I needed to get my knees operated on I could
A) do it through the public system, get which ever Dr was assigned to me and be put on a wait list depending on urgency of my case. Get notified when the procedure would happen and have to arrange my life around that. Cost to me $0 My mother a pensioner had two knee and two hip replacements along with mulitple stays as she got an infection in one knee (long after the op) total cost to her $0

B) Choose to use my private health cover. Select which specialist I wanted to do the procedure, arrange an appointment and then a date for the procedure based on when the Surgeon was free and it would fit into my life. Book into the hospital and have procedure done.
Cost to me
Well medicare pays 80% of the amount they say the procedure should cost my private health cover pays the remaining 20% but if the surgeon charges over that I have to pay that amount. This can all be found out before the procedure with a few phone calls to my private health cover. $250 for the hospital stay for 5 days my health care fund pays the rest. Some extras that may or may not be covered by my health cover for drugs or specialized supports. When I had a total knee replacment the total cost to me was around $1000 Total cost of the surgery was around $20,000 by the time the surgeon, anesthetics, prothesis, and the hospital fees were totalled.

I can pick and choose my health care fund it is not related at all to my job and they make decisions based on finance and science (some things they won't cover because the cost to them would be too great so people use the public system for that.)

I had a tooth crack so I now have a prosthetic one I paid a total of 2000 out of the 5000 it would have cost, my private health fund paid the rest. If I had to be admitted to hospital for the procedure it would have cost me less.

Also we have a cap on medications my parents as pensioners paid a total per year of 500 for medications they needed, when the hit the 500 mark all medications become free for the rest of the year.

The government also sponsors certain medications and they are sold cheaper as the government pays the company for them and sells them at a regulated price to the Australian people. No one has to die because they can not afford their insulin. Heck my dad bought a small fridge to keep his supply in because at one point he had so much of the stuff (he bought it in bulk for some bizarre reason)

Why Americans are not rioting in the streets about his I can not understand. Why should anyone's employer have a say in your medical treatment. It beggars belief.

I'm confused. In my experience employers do not pay directly for specific drugs or procedures. Employers traditionally pay for employee health insurance plans. The insurance company makes the determination as to what is covered. Why is the employer the defendant and not the insurance company ?

Sweet

No everyone with HIV has an alternate lifestyle. This goes against the establishment clause of the first amendment.

Funny how religious freedom seems to only work for one side, smh. This is another reason to go to a national health care and take it out of the hands of any employer.

Some employer will claim to be Christian Scientist and claim that ALL MEDICAL TREATMENT violates his religious freedom.

I'm sick of all the religious bullshit. HIV isn't a "gay" disease. Yes, there is a higher risk in the male gay community as the disease hit there hard. It exists elsewhere as well: blood transfusions; drugs; prostitution; and just plain every day heterosexual sex - especially in the older, gated communities. Outside of the US, HIV decimated large groups in Africa who weren't gay. And on and on and on.