Of course, nearly everyone knows at least one example of a failure of the former American health care system compared to an optional other country in the world. But just stating that the whole system was bad because some woman could not afford a certain medication does not appear to be very convincing, though it still is a tragic situation. Individual biographies can be very useful examples in order to provide evidence for theories, however, they do not substitute facts. This is the reason for me not to build my post upon the contents of Michael Moore’s film “Sicko” from 2007, which I think to be brilliant though. He introduces numerous stories of people having no or problems with their health insurance and interviews those who worked for “evil” insurance companies. If you have not watched the film yet, I really recommend doing so. Here is the trailer, hopefully you acquire a taste for it…
It feels like it took me about ages of research until I finally found a collection of facts stating what went wrong with the American health care system that was not too biased in either direction. With "The Health Report to the American People" from 2006 the Citicen's Health Care Working group published a comprehensible roundup of pros and cons concerning the system at that time in order to inform the average American. Their aim was to enable a well-informed discussion about the topic so that civil participation has a chance to influence heath care policy. The whole report can be accessed as a PDF file, but for my purposes the apt summary published by the UFCW (United Food and Commercial Workers) will suffice.
I will add an even shorter overview as soon as possible.
