the only difference is that in socialized medicine you wait for life saving surgery for months even when you have money to pay for it. So everybody suffers.
No, if you need lifesaving surgery, you get it. And you don't get a bill that ends up costing a second mortgage.
Elective procedures - that's a different story. But it is location specific, and in many countries with mixed public/private systems you can pay through your nose if you like anyway
Currently the insurance company does, and since they were most likely selected by your employer whose objective was to hold down costs, what do you think that insurer's priorities are going to be? Plus, who's the customer in this situation? For whose business is the insurance company really working for?
no doubt having your employment being tied to your insurance is a really, really bad idea, but may I remind that state of affairs is because of a government incentive put into place by FDR.
I believe it was originally because of postwar wage/price controls, which led to employers giving health insurance to attract employees, which led to the IRS taxing health insurance, which led to Congress exempting health insurance from tax, which led to the current regime we have today, compounded by the McCarran-Ferguson Act as well as the HMO Act.
You failed to mention the context of that government incentive - World War II. And the incentive you're referring to was put in place by the War Labor Board in 1942, during FDR's presidency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Labor_Board
In australia if you're in a hospital and you need surgery, you get it. Today if necessary.
Nothing needs 'approval'. Because everyone has the same insurer (The government), if you present to a hospital you are triaged according to your risk and treated appropriately. No 'approval' and no 'rejection'. It just happens.
And if you have osteoarthritis of your knees and want surgery in the private system (which can generally happen on demand instead of - because it is an emergent/elective condition - some time between now and 12 months from now) then you can go ahead and organise that.
If you would like to read a media release by the College of Surgeons have a look at [1] which not only describes emergency and elective but talks about about how surgery is managed in the hospital.
yeah, like bribes to doctors so they actually perform this cancer tumor surgery to my dad instead of asking him to wait in line for months more. Seen a doctor? Has a belly and a family. Needs money. Simple. But some idiots believe in "free". There is no free. You pay a ton of money for healthcare in any system.
go outside US and you will see that societies are concerned about people with deadly diseases like cancer having to wait months for surgeries. Because there arent enough doctors. Because there arent enough beds in hospitals. Because there just aeent enough medications. People have much more serious problems with socialized medicine than cost. ie waiting line of 6 months for prostate cancer surgery when every day counts. There are many much more important aspects of healthcare than affordability. Wouldnt you trade this 6 months waiting line for bankruptcy? Really?
You do realize saying "in socialized medicine" is as vague as saying "in every other country in the world" don't you?
There are 193 members states in the UN, of those 192 have a health care system that I would bet nearly 100% of americans would call "socialized medicine" in a poll. That includes countries like Sweden with completely state controlled top of the line healthcare, also England with state regulated prices for the private sector and also a top 5 in any reasonable metric health care system, or Panama/Argentina/Brazil with a mixed public and private not-top-of-the-line-but-reasonably-working system that includes very cheap private health insurance. It also includes Cuba, that has a very dfferent system than lets say Russia or Chile.
Your remark is as vague and irrelevant as saying "the only difference between HN readers and the rest of the world is that the former usually make vague and irrelevant remarks based on their personal beleifs".
Elective procedures - that's a different story. But it is location specific, and in many countries with mixed public/private systems you can pay through your nose if you like anyway