We got free healthcare in europe that i pay for with atrociously high taxes. Yet whenever i actually need to visit a doctor i always go to a private one.
Let me translate that: "I sure have a lot of money".
The point is having a doctor available for everybody, not just the people who can afford it. Yes, those of us who make more money pay more for it, in the form of taxes.
Ultimately, you'll need to decide if you want to care only about your wellbeing, or about society's wellbeing.
> The point is having a doctor available for everybody
Not necessarily in a timely manner, which is important for things like Autism (and because of the belief in the system, can actually harm the person). Even if you can afford it, you don't necessarily get to see a doctor, even with years long wait times. And even if you see a doctor, the actual service they provide might be worthless (e.g. suggesting you put your child in an institution and forget about it).
This is just my experience dealing with the Canadian healthcare system in Montreal. Moving to the US provided cheaper, faster, and superior results in every metric.
> Not necessarily in a timely manner, which is important for things like Autism (and because of the belief in the system, can actually harm the person).
On a related note, since you mention autism: for all the faults of the healthcare system in the US, it's far and away the best at treating chronic mental health conditions. For various reasons, most European countries have a pretty bad approach at providing access to mental health care. This isn't just for specific conditions, but for a wide range of the most common mental health ailments (depression, anxiety, ADHD, ASD, etc.)
Just getting diagnosed is incredibly difficult, but even for people who've been disagnosed, getting approved for treatment is such a long and painful process that many people give up[0]. I know people who have literally turned down jobs that would require them to live in Europe for extended periods of time because they couldn't afford (in the metaphorical sense, not financial) to go without treatment for months before getting approved.
Mental health care in the US has a lot of problems, and I hope we fix them, but there's no comparison if you're looking at other countries.
[0] Don't forget that many of these conditions also affect a person's ability to make it through the months-long process in the first place, so telling them "you'll have to jump through a series of hoops for a year before you can get treated" is basically equivalent to refusing to treat them.
I live an europe, and having recently gotten very ill, I go to nationalized doctors a lot. It's not free, but very close to free, and I would be bankrupt in the US by now. For instance, I did an MRI for less than 50 EUR. How much do you think it costs in the US? I would guess at least an order of magnitude more, likely more.
I went to a just a few private doctors too to get a second opinion, and because they had a reputation as some of the best in the field, and they were cheap as well. My guess is because they have to compete with the national healthcare system.
> oh, where do you find private doctors in France?
Most doctors in France are private practitioners. They may or may not draw some (or all) of their revenue from insurance, which is partly funded by the government, but not fully (only a little more than 70% of health costs, in the aggregate).
The point is having a doctor available for everybody, not just the people who can afford it. Yes, those of us who make more money pay more for it, in the form of taxes.
Ultimately, you'll need to decide if you want to care only about your wellbeing, or about society's wellbeing.