You are so right, Ken! I just get more and more boggled as to how the American system really works. It seems to be at war against itself. And doing the wrong things for the right reason. Or the right things for the wrong reasons? Or the wrong things for the wrong reasons???
Obamacare is nothing like our Canadian health care system. The US system appears to have basically kept the same bureaucracies and structures in place and just added the uninsured to the system. (Please correct me if I am wrong!) So the same private ownership of hospitals, the same inflated drug prices (and rising) and the same copays or much more for people who already had insurance.
Right or not? I do want to understand what is going on.
Now the shut-down. Who is doing what and why? It appears to be the Republicans?? So why did they pass the bill in the first place if they didn't like it? Or was something tacked on the bill to appease them? Too complex for one parliamentary system person!
In Canada, all health care is run by the government. All training of doctors and nurses, hospitals, and doctors are paid through the system. (OK, the docs and nurses pay tuition, but it is a fraction of the US costs!) Everyone is covered if they apply for it. It would be foolish not to apply for health insurance, since it is free in every province except BC. Immigrants are covered too, if they are registered. My American DIL is not covered because of some endless strike by immigration, so she cannot get registered. I told her to apply for landed immigrant's status about 5 years ago, so that is another debate.
Then there is the cost of prescription drugs. I take a biologic, which is a cancer drug used to treat Rheumatoid Arthritis. It costs $10,000 here for two infusions. Sounds like a lot, until you realize that the same drug in the US costs $75,000 and that drug is made in the US. I could list hundreds of drugs that are the same. I buy a provincial insurance plan for $143 a month (because the drug is so expensive!) and my copay is $50 total. I heard copays have gone up dramatically under this new Obamacare.
Anyway, I don't understand the American system and probably never will. I am just glad I live in Canada, where pre-exisiting conditions have always been covered, and no one is denied free health care unless they were careless in when they applied for citizenship. And hopefully that will be resolved in the next 5 or 6 months. LOL