Cocoa How have the mighty fallen OT. 724Umbrian *Everyone* in Australia, apart from some categories of newly arrived migrants - and it's only a matter of months before they are covered - , is covered by basic...
Anne Chambers snipped sad sad story
I am so sorry to hear of your loss and relieved to hear that the experience was so well ameliorated by your health system. I got the general idea that 1) it was illegal to exclude anybody, and work was not the only road, but also social clubs, etc. and 2) the cost was leveled by using the entire population as a risk base, rather than in the USA where insurance companies cherry pick the low risk people and refuse to accept anybody who has been sick. Insurance being tied to jobs alone is cruel. In downturns millions are uncovered at a low time in their life when they are particularly vulnerable to illness. I am deeply shamed by this aspect of my home country. At the height of my career as an independent professional, I paid about 10% of my income for insurance and still had to pay 20% co-payments for care and got no drug coverage. I was not covered at all for possible recurrence of a cancer I had had as a youth. At the same time I was paying more per month for social security pension payments than I now receive as an early retiree. Those two items came to about 30% of my salary.
