Since you have been able to experience but the UK NHC system and America's free market system, please contrast both of them.
Specifically please addresses the long waits for non-emergency surgery. How long do you wait? Is it as bad as they say?
Enligthen some of us, but please don't say. It's just better!
No system is perfect. How long you have to wait for a non-emergency surgery is often down to luck - it will depend on where you live and how high or low demand is for that surgery. If demand is low, and the right specialists are nearby it could be a very short wait. But if things are the other way round, you could wait ages. I had to wait almost 9 months for some non-urgent surgery and twice it was canceled at a couple hours notice (having had bloodwork done and been told not to eat x hours). I appreciate that this would not happen in the US.
At the same time, when I was a kid, my mother was involved in a serious car accident. Not only did she receive the same level of care as anyone else, but she also received plastic surgery and needless to say didn't have to pay a penny. At the time, my parents were both self employed and couldn't possibly have afforded health insurance had they been living in the UK, so in this sense having a National Health Service was hugely beneficial.
It's such a complex issues, that there really is no right or wrong. I love the health care I get here, but am also appalled by stories I hear from my wife (a school nurse) about the kids with no insurance and the consequences of their lack of healthcare coverage.
First, this is well inaccurate and outright slander!
Second, if you are going to make an ignorant comment like this, then back it up. Because you seem like a snooty Brit snubs his/her nose at Americans, yet you choose to remain here!
Around 1 in 4 believe that Jesus will return in their lifetime These are (unfortunately) facts rater than conspiracy theories.
As a fellow atheist you need to get out more! I personally believe that the American Evangenical God-fears are some the nicest, most chartiable, most tolerate (unless your gay) and non-violent segments of American society!
Evidence of my 'ignorant inaccurate slander'
Being new, I can't post links, but if you google "CSI polling opinion about evolution" the text blow comes from the top article
"the public appears to underestimate the scientific evidence supporting the theory of evolution. In a November 2004 Gallup poll, respondents were asked: Just your opinion, do you think that Charles Darwins theory of evolution is: a scientific theory that has been well supported by evidence, or just one of many theories and one that has not been well-supported by evidence, or dont you know enough to say? Only 35% of Americans indicated a scientific theory supported by evidence, whereas 35% indicated that evolution was just one among many theories, and 29% answered they didnt know. A similar result was found when the same question was asked by Gallup in February 2001.
Newsweek presented the question slightly differently in a December 2004 poll. Respondents were asked: Do you think the scientific theory of evolution is well-supported by evidence and widely accepted within the scientific community, or that it is not well supported by evidence and many scientists have serious doubts about it? Posed in this way, 45% of respondents indicated that evolution was well supported, compared to 42% who believed that scientists had serious doubts, with 13% answering they didnt know"
More recent:
Put "Darwin-Birthday-Believe-Evolution" into Google:
"On the eve of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, a new Gallup Poll shows that only 39% of Americans say they "believe in the theory of evolution," while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don't have an opinion either way. These attitudes are strongly related to education and, to an even greater degree, religiosity."
- These are polls conducted by experts, with margins of error less than +/- 4%. They are representative of the US population, because these are the views representative of the US population. Still think what I said was "ignorant inaccurate slander"?
I don't miss England partly because it's so full of 'Snooty Brits'. Despite spending most of my life in the UK, I'm actually half South African and Half Austrian, so tend not to label myself as anything in particular. The US is a far friendlier place than the UK, I have lots of family here, and I love my (American) wife and her family.
