re: #389 wozzablog

tell your friend to make contacts at the closest public/county hospital to her home before her cobra runs out. One huge concern I have with adopting a public option here in the US—the vast majority of Americans are convinced that our public hospitals are crap. It’s simply not true. They can probably refer her out to a reduced-cost primary care clinic also. It won’t be fancy, and may not be in the best part of town, but she will get good, compassionate care there.

Most Americans would/will scream to high heaven if their public option insurance routes them to those kinds of facilities, however. For proof, look at the screaming at Michelle Obama and the UCMC for their attempts to direct medicaid/indigent patients to more appropriate facilities.

My mom is a retired hospital admin nurse, and she dealt extensively with medicaid patients showing up at her private hospital and their refusal to go to the public hospital even though it was quite good. So we have many issues here in the US to work through that you Brits don’t deal with.