health insurance

Yeah, my step sister who has some money was able to go in for the same thing I am waiting for only one month after she started the process.

i don't agree with that last statement. though i believe everyone should get health care, i dont see why a wealthy person should be forced to go to the same dr as everyone else if they can afford to see someone better and private.

I reckon health care should be above economics, personally. Health care should be completely egalitarian. Someone may be wealthier, but what have they done to deserve to live longer?

Really? Seems a bit extreme. Every time someone opts out of state health care they're freeing resources for someone else.

It's things like the Columbine shooting which I found shocking. Families going bankrupt, holding charity drives in an attempt to cover their medical bills.

Not to mention that forcing people to pay for their own mental healthcare is dangerously ignoring reality.

True enough. But it's like unions; if half the people leave, the other half will probably leave as well (because the union doesn't have enough power to be effective). If half the people join private health funds, the government is going to cut the healthcare budget massively, assuming they can get away with prodding everyone into the private system.

People shouldn't have to pay for healthcare. It should be a fundamental right. The taxation system (in Australia, at least) is certainly strict enough to score enough cash for the government to provide universal healthcare. They just choose to spend the money elsewhere.

One possibly very important thing:

If you are without insurance and pay cash for treatment for some things (depression, bipolar,chronic condition, etc. even annual allergy meds), consider asking your treating doctor not to report it to the various medical record collecting agencies - or keep a second set of utterly confidential records just for her and you to see and absolutely nobody else.

These agencies compile millions of individuals' records and having any of the above on record may make a person essentially uninsurable under an individual policy due to a pre-existing condition.

a free society is based on equality of opportunity, not survival of the richest.

Equality of opportunity is freedom. Equality of outcome is communism. Freedom would be making sure that everyone has the opportunity of making enough money that they have the option of private medical cover.

At the end of the day a lot of things factor into determining your life expectancy. Housing, diet, marriage status, type of employment, education. Simply banning private medical provision would change little.

How can there be equality of opportunity when education levels differ so vastly, some families are so much richer than others, racism, sexism, homophobia and various other forms of discrimination exist, taxation systems benefit the wealthy (perpetuating and exacerbating the unequal distribution of wealth), etc. etc.?

I'm not claiming that we have it, rather that it's what we should be aiming for. Restricting everyone to same level may achieve the equality part but it fails miserably on freedom. It is possible to fund a healthcare system such that private providers have a hard time finding customers. People just need to vote for it.