Just got out of college, so the only thing keeping me covered right now is the ACA. You know every insurance company in the country is waiting with the finger on the button to expel me and millions like me from the rolls of insured individuals as soon as the word comes in.

@ Samuel: yes. You can't go around saying what America should and shouldn't be doing when you have all your medical needs met by a system that actually cares about people and not profits.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ This. I couldn't have said it better myself. It is truly discusing how drug and insurance companies can lobby to influence health care legislation that actually winds up hurting the general populous. Only in America can doctors, physicians, drugists, and health care insurers be a detriment to the people's ability to receive care.

Off topic, but am I the only one who would favor tax funded universal health care?  

a) I can say what I want, about where I want. I'm sure you have opinions on things going on outside your country.

b) You think the NHS cares about patients? Ha. The NHS is full of the same incentive-driven humans that health insurance companies are. The people at the top of the NHS only care about lining their pockets, and increasing their power.

The NHS is a terrible system where the service you receive is dependant on where you live... and guess which kinds of areas get the funding to provide the best treatments? And the fact of the matter is, they had to introduce this "post-code lottery" system because providing all treatment to everybody was unsustainable.

Meanwhile, my parents, right now, are up in London visiting a friend who's laying on a hospital bed waiting for pancreas cancer treatment. Not only did it take over a month to diagnose, when he finally was admitted to hospital, he was admitted to a hospital that didn't have the equipment to treat his cancer. He had to wait for 3 weeks in this hospital before a bed became available in another hospital that could treat the cancer (the other hospital is over an hour away).

I know it's just an anecdote, and anecdotes don't mean much by themselves... but this isn't a rare thing, and it's not the only problem with the NHS. There was a headline in the Telegraph the other day that stated 1 in 5 diagnoses were incorrect and the treatments potentially leathful.

And none of this even takes into account the costs. If you look at the history of National Insurance (the "paying into" part of the single payer system), it has crept up from 6.5% to 12% of income (up to an "upper limit" - however, a new rate of 2% has been added to above the upper limit). And that's just the employee rate, you also have the employer contributions. The rising costs of the NHS have exceeded the growth of the economy for over a decade, despite some reforms and attempts at reigning in the costs.

Simply put, the NHS model arguably does not work today, and it certainly won't work in the future.

No system is perfect, but i'd rather have a guarantee of care than the "screw you, kid" i'm about to get because of Roberts, his gang of crooks, and the death-dealing American insurance companies.

Care to trade?

I think some people are confused about this obamacare, i mean it's not like we don't have to right to get it when we want to or not, it's that when we want it we can't have it because we can't afford it, with obamacare it's like saying so what if you can't afford it, deal with it, therefore i am totally against it

What single player option thing? There is none...

i want to add if people choose not to have it, that is their right, which makes obamacare unconstitutional, and when it comes to employer providing, that has always been just a benefit some employers choose to give, what it a employer doesn't provide health care?, who said you coudn't get one elsewhere? besides getting your own personal health insurance is always better

It is NOT a right not have insurance. If you have no insurance you come to the ER we still have to treat you and pay ur bills. If we are allowed to be unethical what we should do is, if you come to the ER and you have no insurance you just get turned away. It is YOUR CHOICE for not getting insurance, u can just die in front of the hospital then. Does this make sense? Why should rest of the population pay for those who CHOOSES not to get coverage?

And no, the starting salary for PCP in the US is not 125k, i get pay 200k as an internal medicine hospitalist in a subsurban area in California. Family medicine probably 150k or so. 125 maybe AFTER all the tax is about right though.

The amount of schooling we go through; it does not make sense to pay doctors less because sooner or later u will have no doctors then price will again have to go up. We come out of med school with 200+ k of debt. This being compounded during residency.

Do people realize how much training you have to go through to be qualified?

College standard (usually science major) 4 yrs (Loans)
Medical School 4 years (Loans and living expenses)
Residency 3-7 years depending on specialities (80 hour work week on 50k stipend, with monthly repaymdent about 2000, so I was negative salary for a few months if ur car breaks or u need to fix some things to shell out the bill).

We lose about 10 years of productivity and rack up 200k of debt for being a doctor, it is NOT all glamor. it is hard work.

Where was the guarantee of care in his post about NHS? It seems you are guarenteed nothing there either. You have a 20% chance to get the wrong care that may be damaging, and if you do get care you will have to wait while your illness progresses before you get the care. And your care is dependant on where you live not equal across the board. Seems like a mess just the current US system and the Obama Care.

And what is stopping you from getting insurance right now?

Then I'm confused why you don't want to go now.

If you go today, your insurance has to cover at least that doctors visit, since it was before it was canceled.

Though honestly, even if they struck down "the whole law".   I think that part would likely remain.