Excellent first-hand comparison of US and UK health care systems

While I agree that anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to know everything there is about the health care debate, Strawberry from Potential and Expectations has gone to great lengths to make a rational comparison of her experience of the US and UK health care systems, and to share a little of her observations of the UK attitude towards healthcare, as an American expat who lived there for years. The post is entitled "This American's Experience of Britain's Healthcare System", and that title is indicative of her approach. No ideology or inflammatory rhetoric to be found.

I like the fact that she discusses how her attitude towards the UK NHS changed over time, how she began to be able to separate what were system issues and what were simply people issues, how she realized that her experience in the US was quite different between when she was a dependent on her parent's awesome health plan and when she was a consumer of her own not-quite-so-awesome plan. Finally, I like how she notes that anecdotal though her own stories may be, you can certainly compare the cost per capita of healthcare between the two countries and the results of standard measures of healthcare results between the two countries (like life expectancy). Hint: The US does not top Britain on either count. These are objective stats to go along with subjective stories.

There are over 350 comments, and while I didn't read them all, the ones I read stayed basically sane and polite. 

Some stuff I already knew (though plenty of us here don't seem to know them), but I learned some new stuff too. It's a long, thorough, well-written post, and I recommend you read it. 

Comments

[Baby Names]

You know, it's so funny but I used to be the least interested in all this health care stuff until the new health care plan in the U.S. was close to passing. I just hope that our taxes don't get so high from funding it that it makes the recession worse. Maybe by the time it is implemented there will no longer be a recession. I'm holding my breath on this one.

[IVF Symptoms]

I feel that health care worldwide should start covering more with the procedures of IVF. It is sad enough when a couples experiences problems trying to conceive a child and when their only hope left is IVF they are left facing big medical bills with hardly any insurance relief. However, there should be certain stipulations and criteria to be met.