US "Mid-term" Elections 2018

[Husar]

So, very broadly speaking, you currently have the same health care system in Germany as the US has, aka Obamacare.

If you actually pay for your health care directly through bills (or can see the amount deducted from the salary for this purpose), it should be even more obvious that it is not free; and that over a lifetime, it should amount to quite a sum. A sum that you could use to pay for the treatment of a disease that the public health care system is unwilling to cash out for, either because the treatment is too expensive or experimental. Different health care systems have different benefits and drawbacks, and you can expect that some individuals will fall through the cracks with any system.

In other words, health care "free at point of access" - if you actually get access to it, which in practice is not always.

No, we don't. Only some people pay a bill and there is also a parallel private insurance system, where people also pay a monthly bill.
What you can access is defined by the state as a minimum level of care and it covers pretty much everything essential that is not a very experimental treatment abroad or whatever. For medications you usually have to pay a little.

What you're really wrong about though, is that I was arguing about it being free or not. I don't know why you bring up that strawman argument when I didn't even touch the subject of cost.

That no system is perfect is a terrible argument if many of them are vastly superior over the crappy one you're defending.