And, while there are some bad wait times for non-life threatening surgery, I consider the overall system really good. My sister-in-law had major surgery and hospitalization and care was very good.
It's not so strict as a pure "public" service, and there are state-managed hospitals where you can get bad experiences like crowding and bad care, but never to the level you're describing.
And I can (and did) choose to have some better services on top of the basic ones so I have amazing emergency services and same-day specialists, for an extra 200 dollars (on top of my mandatory health tax bill which is also like 500 dollars).
http://www.expatfinder.com/uruguay/expat-guides/article/heal...
My anecdote is that here in the US, if you lose your job and find yourself without insurance, you can literally go bankrupt from a relatively minor injury or sickness due to the extreme cost of medical care. There are plenty of long lines, bad doctors, and low quality hospitals here too so its not like you get rid of those things by going private. People decline to call the ambulance because they are afraid of getting charged thousands of dollars for it if their injury is not covered by insurance which sometimes ends in their death.
I watched my mom die in the hospital and if it weren't for a recent law passed by Obama, we would have had to dip into what little savings we had just to keep her comfortable for her last few days. There is a lot of space for a middle ground that does not need to be limited by your experience or mine.
I never wanted to imply that private services are always high quality, but there definitely is more motivation and it shows - while there might be a considerable portion of bad hospitals in the US, here are literally just a handful below average ones (compared to the US) in my country and it's impossible to get there legally.
Of course low quality hospital beats no hospital, but you should be able to fix that with some kind of mandatory insurance that is state-sponsored if the person is poor, for example, no? Don't forget that I'm reacting to a comment praising public hospitals from control reasons, not about absence of social safety.
I don't understand why people in the US can't or don't pay their insurance themselves instead of through their employer, though. Seems like a huge risk - well you described it.
Your employer can group all of their employees into a single risk pool, so each employee gets a discounted rate. When you purchase insurance on your own you are no longer in a group and so the cost is far more. Doctors are also incentivized to prescribe you drugs you don't need and drugs that insurance covers instead of the correct medication.
My wife had to wait to get surgery on her leg because she just signed up with a new employer and didn't have insurance yet. If she had gotten the surgery without insurance it would have cost somewhere around $100k US.
This is proven to be false by Switzerland, where people purchase their private health insurance themselves.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-the-US-...
I'm in no way praising the US system though. Just saying that public hospitals have been tried and it's really bad. I think the Swiss system is good.
But public healthcare service is much worse in my experience. I'm forced to be a part of a public system but I'd very much prefer to be able to pay private insurance and use private hospitals. We have private hospitals, but the government insurance isn't accepted there (because the law and the system doesn't allow it) and that makes it prohibitively expensive to me even though I'm a software developer for a USA company making nearly 6 figures - I'd have more than enough money for private services, but the government demands so much that I simply don't have enough left, and so I'm forced to take the "free" services (very huge quotes as I'm paying US$1500 per month for my government health insurance specifically - it's a separate line on my tax report).
Anecdotal story: One time I've driven my girlfriend to a major hospital (in the capital city of the country) because she had acute abdomen pains and the ambulance wouldn't even get there within 20 minutes (again, I live in the capital city). We spent more than 4 hours waiting before somebody even looked at her even though I tried really hard to get someone to look at her immediately, it simply wasn't possible; during our journey from the main gate to the emergency room, we were met with extreme disinterest in anything regarding our well being or providing good services at all. They sent me to a wrong building THREE TIMES while I was carrying her in hands even though I asked VERY CLEARLY where the emergency service is. When we got there, I had to pay around 100 CZK (5 USD) to even get into a queue, but no one told us, with no signs or anything around - the problem is that I specifically asked THE GUY THAT I LATER PAID TO if we need to do something. He didn't even look at me and he didn't even know where is the emergency room in his building. And then I had to pay around 50 USD for parking there for so long.
I have many first-hand experiences like that, e.g. you wouldn't believe the conditions and treatment that awaits you if you need to be hospitalized (5 and more people in one room, of course no AC, one shower and 2 toilets for ~10 rooms, one electrical socket for the whole room, of course no internet, TV always on at full volume, food that couldn't even be considered leftovers from neighboring low-tier restaurants, total disinterest of nurses and straight-up anger towards patients that need anything, people often need to have their beds in the hallway because there are not enough rooms, etc).
If you're pregnant, tough luck, there are literally 5 year-long queues to get into a "good" hospital (very low quality by US standards) and if you want something that is at least of average quality by US standards, you have only two options: Corruption or private - I have a whole savings account for that, but I'm a high income individual (it costs around US$50k in a private "high quality" hospital that'd be considered below average in the US, and there is no way to insure yourself against expenses in private hospitals, and even if there was, it'd be on top of the US$1500 I'm already paying).
My grandfather died because of these low quality services, but of course tough luck suing anyone or getting any compensation, that's simply not possible because "that's just how it is" is considered to be acceptable defense of the hospital and the system. Even if you're successful, the biggest compensation ever granted (and that happened just once) was around US$10k.
The only thing that is "good" (average compared to the US) is what we call "high-intensive hospital care", but you don't get into that very often - that's a completely separate department for people with very severe illness or very severe other problems, and of course even if you really need it, qualifying for it is very hard because there are not enough places.
Fuck public healthcare services. I'm completely okay with donating (even through taxes) some sum of money so everyone can have access to healthcare, but I want to buy my own healthcare services on a free market.
I live in Central Europe, btw. I expect downvotes to flow, but it'd be nice to have a discussion, so please, reply instead of downvoting if possible.