Yeah, I'm first to crap on US health care, but there are days I sort of understand why things in the States are the way they are. Almost everyone I know here (in Poland) tries to go for private care whenever they have spare cash, because public health care is pretty unpleasant and makes you waste a lot of time (+ you usually get scheduled for a visit many months in the future). This can actually be more expensive than private care if you count opportunity costs.

Recently my wife & I were forced to use the public service, and after 3 days of traveling back & forth, day after day, to another city, being told to visit another ward next day, and come back the day later, I was begging for someone to throw money at to make our problem go away. And I'm not really blaming the staff; they're all severely overworked, underequipped and underpaid. There's a huge problem with public health care here, kind of an opposite to the US problems. Poor or rich, you will get medical attention, just possibly months after when it's needed.