> were you not employed by an employer that was paying your insurance premiums? Heck, when I was in california the startup I was at was paying almost my entire insurance premium.
I didn't end up moving to California, mostly for family reasons. However, I do in fact get my private health insurance paid (mostly) by my employer in Ireland.
> reason for better quality of care is that in the US system for all its problems, the patient is the customer as they have many options and each doctor is running an independent business. my experience with socialized medicine is that the government is really the customer, not me, and doctors are not really running independent businesses (and when they do, they aren't particularly cheap). It's like having a single HMO that gets to decide what you get with little recourse. While some might equate it to health insurance companies in the US, I, at least, felt I had much more flexibility with them.
I mean, I am a specialist and I like when people listen to me about my specialist advice. Therefore, I'm OK with listening to doctors. Clearly I'll find another doctor if the advice doesn't work consistently but my prior is to listen to the experts, so I don't really see the benefit of the US approach.
I didn't end up moving to California, mostly for family reasons. However, I do in fact get my private health insurance paid (mostly) by my employer in Ireland.
> reason for better quality of care is that in the US system for all its problems, the patient is the customer as they have many options and each doctor is running an independent business. my experience with socialized medicine is that the government is really the customer, not me, and doctors are not really running independent businesses (and when they do, they aren't particularly cheap). It's like having a single HMO that gets to decide what you get with little recourse. While some might equate it to health insurance companies in the US, I, at least, felt I had much more flexibility with them.
I mean, I am a specialist and I like when people listen to me about my specialist advice. Therefore, I'm OK with listening to doctors. Clearly I'll find another doctor if the advice doesn't work consistently but my prior is to listen to the experts, so I don't really see the benefit of the US approach.