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In the USA, it's around $3497 per eye. In the UK, with the NHS, it costs between £1000 and £5500
https://www.privatehealth.co.u...

http://www.privatehealth.co.uk... Seems trivial to find a hospital that will take your money.

Monopoly healthcare. No choice healthcare.

Only if you believe the drivel forced down your neck by the US media.

Government healthcare is NOT monopoly healthcare or "no choice healthcare". Here in the UK I have the option of being treated on the NHS (government) or I can go private, it is entirely up to me.

Here are some useful links to anyone interested in private healthcare in the UK:

http://www.spirehealthcare.com/
http://www.bupa.co.uk/
http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/

Unfortunately I still have to pay for the government healthcare out of my taxes but that is not what you were complaining about at all was it?

"No but in the US, you can simply walk in, hand-over some cash, and get the PAP smear done."

Err: http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/hospitaltreatment/hospitaltreatment-enquiryform/

"She had no other choices."

She could have gone to a private doctor and paid for the procedure.

The UK has no private hospitals.

False. I get the feeling I'm being trolled here, because it took me 2 seconds on Google to find that link.

Remember to put your option in the oven to bake at gas mark 6. And here's one I prepared earlier.

Hypothetically how many people would die if we didn't have a strong standing military?

Exactly, and how many people would be banging down the doors of Congress to demand a strong military if we were getting bombed by Mexico every other week? We should be doing the same with healthcare.

I am against completely the idea that the Government should be in control of who, how, and when I receive healthcare.

And therein lies the problem. If you had a private army, you probably wouldn't want to pay taxes for a national military either, especially if the government took away your army, and started dictating when, where, and how you could deploy it. Unfortunately, the privilege of your choice in healthcare comes at the cost of many others having no healthcare at all. Additionally, neither of the healthcare systems in either Canada or the UK restrict *who* your doctor is -- you're free to choose your GP. Canadians bitch about wait times for doctors, but we have ridiculous wait times here, AND millions of uninsured. When's the last time you went to an ER, or had to make an appointment to see a specialist. Odds are you waited *hours* in the ER, and got an appointment for sometime the following month.

Despite the fear mongering regarding nationalized healthcare in single-payer systems like Canada and England, the fact remains that they have *better* care by every metric, including cost. And right now, your insurance company is the one standing between you and your doctor. You may trust them more than the government, but there's plenty of examples of people being denied coverage for lifesaving procedures from their insurance company, and meanwhile active duty military never pay a dime for any healthcare services, *including voluntary surgery* like breast reductions or Lasik. Good luck getting your insurance to cover those.

Anecdotally, I've never had better healthcare than when I was either a government employee directly, or a contractor whose employer was subject to government requirements for minimum standards of coverage. Yeah, we could pass legislation to mandate that *all* insurance companies meet minimum standards, but they're still going to be motivated by profit, and experience has shown them that denying coverage drives profit more than enticing new customers (who normally don't have a direct choice in the first place, since their employer chooses) by *expanding* coverage. The medical insurance system we have in place today for is a far cry from car or homeowners insurance, where companies compete vigorously to earn customers. It's exactly the opposite, because they know the only thing the purchaser (employer) typically cares about is the bottom line, and most people can't or won't just switch jobs to find better coverage. Do you really think McDonalds is trying to lure better burger flippers by finding the best healthcare available? Of course not.

And finally, it's not like private healthcare will simply disappear. There are plenty of private providers in the UK despite the existence of the NHS. So if you're wealthy, you'll still be able to use your capital to obtain better care than the little people. But if you're not wealthy, and if we mirror the systems of the UK or Canada, then *most people* will get better care, yourself included, the 50 Million people who have no insurance will *definitely* get better care, and the very few people who receive worse care as a result can at least know that their minor sacrifice of not getting a premium suite, or having to use generic drugs when available, has improved the overall state of affairs.