> remarked that non-life-threatening illnesses like a broken arm can have waiting times measured in months You aren't going to wait months for a broken arm. Th

> remarked that non-life-threatening illnesses like a broken arm can have waiting times measured in months You aren't going to wait months for a broken arm. That's just not happening. The reason it's beloved is because when some guy sucker punches you and breaks your jaw it's not financially ruinous. You can go to emergency, get pulled out of line because a nurse sees you are actually in trouble, and then get surgery from a specialist a couple days later. It ends up costing you almost nothing. That's exactly what happened to my father. My mom has epilepsy. When I was a kid we had to call an ambulance multiple times because that's what we were told to do if she had a larger than normal seizure and my dad wasn't home to take care of her. We could do that because it didn't cost us thousands of dollars each time, which would have been beyond our ability to pay. My grandma has had cancer, my grandpa has had a heart attack, my other grandma had a stroke that required weeks of recovery time in hospital. My cousin was born with a hole in her heart. Another with a cleft pallet. It's not perfect. it has a lot of holes and we have problems like shortages of doctors. It's still a "beloved" system because it saves lives and does so without costing an absurd amount.