Some of us envy the British healthcare system or NHS, or even the Canadian system. So your rhetorical question doesn't seem so puzzling. What you get is paid for through your country's income taxes. Most Americans I know are fond of the "Doc Martin" TV series, which is otherwise as much as we know of any greater detail about life with the NHS.
By contrast, I pay out -- as a retired person -- a total of $544 per month in health insurance premiums. Looking at my spreadsheets, I see that this is just 9% of my annual gross income, which includes some variable or uncertain amount of a return on my investment nest-egg. I was a federal employee most of my working life, and there was nothing special about the group policy insurance or premiums that civil servants paid. You could change insurers during an annual open season. Your premiums were deducted from your paycheck. So in addition to Medicare, as a retired person my original insurer continues to be my secondary insurer.
It seems that I've no longer had "co-pays" or deductible expenses since I applied for my Social Security around 2010. I pay small amounts for prescription drugs, also covered incompletely under Medicare part D.
But premiums seem to increase annually -- something less than 10% -- or they otherwise follow the COLA or cost of living increase to my retirement income and social security. That is, increases to premiums are always some percentage of these COLA additions to annual income-- or by my stale calculations, no more than half the COLA increases.
How the crisis over the Affordable Care Act and the federal budget will affect me or my healthcare costs, I cannot say. I have worries about what I don't know or what I cannot fully anticipate. I DO KNOW that the ACA (or "Obama-care") kept my brother alive for the 12 years since he fell under the auspices of that program. He had circulatory disease, COPD and osteoporosis with arthritis. He had great health care. With my Moms who had been employed by the defense industry until 1995, we all had great health care and insurance after we retired. But my brother had worked in the culinary industry, so his healthcare was inadequate until he could draw social security as SSDI and Medicare in addition to the ACA.
I'm watching the news developments today as that Asshole and Criminal seeks to raid the US Treasury for $230 million over the justifiable investigations made into his nefarious crimes. It makes me absolutely sick. So -- wow -- great healthcare, neutralized by chronic disgust and rage.
