@Tengu. I have more or less retired from this conversation due to the level of drama. I hate drama. Since you addressed me directly, I will answer you directly.
The US has a plan called Medicaid for persons below retirement age who are not covered for some reason or another by an employer benefit medical plan.
President Nixon decided to decentralize the administration of Medicaid to the states. The states decide who is eligible, within the limits of Federal law, and the states dispense the funds. This has lead to massive Medicaid fraud.
I've never been on Medicaid, as I have worked, on the books, since I was 12. Therefore, I'm not expert on Medicaid, other than it exists. I too am disabled but I have continued to work through these fairly severe disabilities.
The people pushing a NHS type plan in the US point to folks who have no medical plan as the reasons the US should adopt a NHS type plan. In effect Medicaid is like NHS. In the US, if you have a good private plan you have access to the best medical treatment in the world. This is the absolute vast majority of working age people in the US, with jobs and who are legally present. The rest of the population gets Medicaid. Sound familiar? For instance, I break a bone, I walk into the private hospital that is clean, pleasant. They offer me a turkey sandwich and a cup of coffee while they set my bone with the bill being covered by my medical insurance. A person on Medicaid breaks a bone the county fire rescue transports them to the county hospital (40+ miles away) where they WILL be treated but it is less pleasant, no coffee or sandwich unless you get it out of the machine with the bill being covered by Medicaid. Now, there is a third group who never registered with Medicaid, don't have private medical insurance. These people will also be treated but they are getting the full bill to pay. Since these people are mostly indigent, mentally ill, or here illegally the tax payers end up accepting their burden.
This is why I brought up earlier that plans like Medicaid or NHS do work but you absolutely must have more people paying in than taking out. Compassion, aside, you absolutely cannot allow people to show up, take social services, who have not, are not and will not pay into those services. Those services must be reserved for those who have paid into them and those citizens or subjects who can never work (the mentally disabled, insane, fundamentally physically disabled, etc). I think denying an intellectually disabled person medical care is cruel and wrong. On the other hand that person may not get their care if it is being soaked up by a person who just showed up in this country illegally.
We all know there are certain truths that cannot be escaped or ignored. Medical personnel get paid, medicines cost money, treatment costs money. Just because the money is not floating out of your wallet does not mean you did not pay for NHS in the UK via your taxes or me paying for my private medical coverage in the US.
Last comment. Once a person gets to retirement age they can register with Medicare. While on Medicare you can continue to see your private doctors and walk into any hospital of your choice, private or public. I hope that I answered your question. I'll provide a link to the Wikipedia page on medicaid below.
