United States
The United States has a two-tier public-private health system but the majority of the population cannot gain access to the public provision tiers. Health care provided directly by the government is limited to military and veteran families and certain Native American tribes. Certain cities and towns also provide free care directly, but only to those who cannot afford to pay. Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program pay for health care obtained at private facilities, but only for the elderly, disabled, and children in poor families.
The debate over health care reform in the United States has included a proposal for a "public option" or "Medicare for All" - a government-run insurance program, available to all U.S. citizens, that would compete with private insurance plans. The stated goal of such a program would be to reduce costs through vigorous competition, while preserving choice of insurance coverage for patients. Opposition to this option has centered around concerns that the government program would have an unfair advantage (a removed profit goal and a budget limited only by taxation and Congress appropriations), and that it could thus result in the elimination of private health insurance through attrition.
Further information: Health care in the United States and ObamacareRead more about this topic: Two-tier Health Care
Famous quotes related to united states:
“I feel most at home in the United States, not because it is intrinsically a more interesting country, but because no one really belongs there any more than I do. We are all there together in its wholly excellent vacuum.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States
His laughter tinkled among the teacups.
I thought of Fragilion, that shy figure among the birch-trees,
And of Priapus in the shrubbery
Gaping at the lady in the swing.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“The city of Washington is in some respects self-contained, and it is easy there to forget what the rest of the United States is thinking about. I count it a fortunate circumstance that almost all the windows of the White House and its offices open upon unoccupied spaces that stretch to the banks of the Potomac ... and that as I sit there I can constantly forget Washington and remember the United States.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)