Heavy question, I know. This is not intended to be political, please leave “taxes/government evil” out of it, I’m interested in a pragmatic view.
Infamously the US has mostly private health care, but we also have Medicare and -aid, the ACA, and the VA.
Most other nations have socialized health care in some format. Some of them have the option to have additional care or reject public care and go fully private.
Realistically, what are the experiences with your country’s health care? Not what you heard, not what you saw in a meme, not your “OMG never flying this airline again” story that is the exception while millions successfully complete uneventful and safe journey story. I’m also not interested in “omg so-and-so died waiting for a test/specialist/whatever”. All systems have failures. All systems have waits for specialists unless you’re wealthy, and wealth knows no borders. All systems do their best to make sure serious cases get seen. It doesn’t always work, but as a rule they don’t want people dying while waiting.
Are the costs in taxes, paycheck withholding (because some people pay for social health care out of paychecks but don’t call it a tax), and private insurance costs worth it to you?
In the US. My partner has health insurance through her job, but she works remotely and the company is based in a different state so the insurance is, too. Partner severed her Achilles tendon about two months ago. Because of confusion about her insurance, every appointment related to the initial injury took an extra hour or more while the office staff tried to get in touch with the insurance company. Her MRI was cancelled because the provider of the MRI thought she was uninsured. She had to reschedule and ended up paying out of pocket for it to ensure it got done. Getting reimbursed out of her HSA took several hours of compiling receipts and filing out forms. After all that, and being insured, she still paid $4000 out of pocket. There’s also a very low limit to the amount of physical therapy sessions insurance will cover plus there’s a copay for every session, so that’s an ongoing cost as well.