Healthcare In The USA

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People on the public system (medicare) pay for the system themselves through whats called the 'medicare levy'. This is a one off yearly tax approx 1.5% of the persons income. This is paid in addition to their regular income tax. If you are privately insured, you are exempt from paying the levy.

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This is great! why can't we have something like that in Britain?

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

I bet ya not as much as we do. Difference is we don't get any tax deductions for being privately insured. Your system seems a lot fairer.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"

that's interesting, rumour has it that we're one of the most taxed people in the world but it's useful to see some figures for other countries.The trouble here is that if you're on a low-to-medium salary (20-35K) and you want to get private insurance you can't afford it, as you're already paying about 10% of it for your National Insurance contributions.
You don't get NI relief for having private health cover, so it kind of limits your choice.That's why it seems to me that the Aussie system is fairer, as it acknowledges the fact that you're placing less burden on the public system by giving you a tax reduction.

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"We must respect the law, not let it blind us away from the basic principles of fairness, justice and freedom"