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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices
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To: bentway who wrote (507691)8/25/2009 7:32:46 AM
From: Taro1 Recommendation  Read Replies (1) of 1580013
 
I pay aro 17k Euro a year out of my pocket for private health insurance for my wife and me.
Some of that but not all is tax deductible.

So why do I do that when everything is supposed to be free?
Because otherwise I face the rationing problem and rather long waiting lines for MRI and even necessary operations as is the case in for instance Sweden and Holland.
Furthermore, having a private insurance I can pick the best doctors and hospitals at my discretion.

In Germany, the alternative would be the de facto state run 200+ (!) insurances, which draw their income from salary deductions on top of the tax. For those earning less than 48k Euro a year, what is an option only to me, is a forced 'membership' to them and the annual fee thus deducted cannot compete with the private health insurances available.

Still, however, the choices of treatment, doctors and hospitals are limited. Nominally the Germans pay a much lower tax than for instance Scandinavians, but when you add up the German tax, health insurance plan and 'solidarity adder' (keeps the former East German social programs from going belly up), that total is no lower than taxes in for instance Sweden.

The 'best' combination of all above I know of seems to be health insurance in Italy. In particular so if you are well connected and know where to go with your needs. The MRI waiting line of a couple of weeks can be shortened to days by smooth talk and a small fee and this seems to be typical for how it works.

So should/could the Italian (or French) health insurance model be applied to the USA? My first question would be if we can afford it?
Definitely seems to come in less costly than Obama's universal ideas and possibly the USA could afford what neither France nor Italy seem to know how to handle without rapidly running up their national debt.

Taro
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