Amidst the whole healthcare debate, I found this post really interesting because whenever we start to talk about true universal healthcare, the opening argument is that the service and quality are terrible in places like Canada and Europe, and that ultimately the USA somehow still has a better system, despite being ridiculously expensive and unavailable to far too many of its citizens.
It’s a story of basically one woman coming around on the idea of universal healthcare after moving to Canada and using the system firsthand herself for having a baby…
How I Lost My Fear of Universal Health Care
http://ayoungmomsmusings.blogspot.com/2012/07/how-i-lost-my-fear-of-universal-health.html
Not for nothing, but both parents being able to split a year of paid maternity leave is enough to get me listening!
The moral of the story – let’s actually hear some real world examples before we knock universal healthcare because in nearly every scenario I’ve ever read, it’s always Americans saying how the concept is horrible and unfair and anti-freedom in other countries, whereas the people actually using it for the most part seem pretty happy.
(be sure to read through the comment thread, too – lots of good perspectives from a variety of nations who are successfully on single-payer systems)