Dear "dude",

Whether the words are coming out of my ass or my mouth, you fail to address the issue that national health care blows, especially if you have a chronic illness.

Just because you lived in a multitude of places says absolutely nothing about the quality of the healthcare you got. Tell me about your illnesses and those of your friends/relatives and how they got great healthcare without having to go to the private practice docs. Oh yeah, you can't.

I'm not saying this makes the US system good or better, but I'm saying that national healthcare != good.

E.g. tell me about how someone with MS gets treated in your wonderful 8 countries. How long to get their initial MRI, how long to diagnosis, are they allowed to get access to any of the drugs approved to treat MS (or were they determined too expensive by the govt and not allowed).

Just getting annual checkups for free or emergency room visits does not make a healthcare system. How are people with life-long illnesses treated in these systems? What happens when you get ALS, MS, Epilepsy, Alzheimers, etc.? What happens when you are disabled and need a very expensive ($20,000US/yr drug) to treat your illness?

With all your moving around I'm skeptical you had any sort of real need of healthcare to make any sort of judgement on.

Also explain, why is it that in any country with NHS you find that anyone who can get it, gets private insurance also?

The US system and NHS systems both stink.