Quote Originally Posted by pomtzu View Post
Yes - . I guess the one benefit here is that we don't have the wait or have to go to designated providers for care that you do with a public health care system.
This is not necessarily true. In many HMOs if you do not like your doctor or the service you receive the only way to change (at least until the next open enrollment) is if you want to pay the whole thing on your own (and who can afford to do that??) I had an employee recently who needed to see a specialist but her HMO could not schedule her for weeks.

Most plans today are HMO or PPO - in an HMO you do not have coverage unless you do to the designated doctors/clinic/hospital. In a PPO you can go to other than the designated but your benefits will be reduced (often sharply.)

And doctors go in and out of plans. In Chicago we had a doctor we liked very much. His hospital decided not to stay in the plan we had. We either had to change doctors or switch to a lesser plan in order to continue to see him.