I hope that's not your leg in the picture.
I remember paying for medical insurance was mandatory when I lived in the USA (Mid 90's). We don't have such problems here as basic medical is covered by the NHS, which In turn is payed from taxes.
That saying, the general level of care here is not good in my opinion, the doctors are pressed for time, they make guesses at what your condition is, you buy the drugs at a basic prescription charge (£8.45 I think currently) and if they guessed wrong, you paid for something useless.
That saying, as far as care goes, I would prefer to be here than there. The expertise level is greater in the US, but at a huge cost to your pocket.
Well, it wasn't my leg , it belongs to my oldest boy. That happened last July when his younger brother was chopping some wood. The younger boy got the ax for his 15th birthday and I trained him how to use it and he is real good with it. The older brother said, "I'll show you ..." and the end result you see. The older boy wasn't trained and the younger one told him he didn't think it was a good idea for the older to use it, but the older brother "won" the argument and the preceded to prove his little brother correct.
We in the USA did not have it where it was mandatory you had to have medical insurance in the 90's that didn't come about until Oboma was president just about 6 years ago or so.
Plenty of companies have used providing medical insurance as benefit of employment with the company and most people took advantage of it because the group rates were lower than having an individual policy. So if you got it through your job that might make it seem like it was required by the government but it wasn't back then.
I have never had medical care in a country other than the USA so I can't say as too quality where is better, I do know that the USA has plenty of foreign dignitaries and royalty come here for treatments and operations so the care must be better than a lot of places.
The cost is the big issue, and prescriptions are a prime example, there are plenty of people who will go down to Mexico and have their prescriptions filled down there for the exact same brand and dosage at 1/5 or less cost than here in Texas. Some are even more savings than that, and the drugs are exported to Mexico from the USA to begin with. There is something wrong in the system when things like that can happen. I'm told that people go to Canada as well for prescriptions to save on the cost.
One big problem here is we are a very litigious society, people will sue each other for anything and everything and what ever falls between those two things. The costs of malpractice insurance and product liability insurance is astronomical and that is a big reason the care is so expensive, no the only reason, but a major contributing factor.
Ill have to stand corrected on the mandatory medical care. It was when I was working, and it did appear to be non-optional.
I never used it during my work tenure, as I was younger then and didn't get sick, except for a bout of chicken-pox that was very unpleasant.
The border prescription thing you mentioned sounds totally ridiculous. I don't know where you live in Texas but I do know it borders Mexico. Have you done this border trip to buy yours?
I do not take any medicines so I have no need too. I regularly travel down to south Texas on business and meet several people in the hotels that are there for that expressed purpose. I have met people from Oklahoma and Arkansas as well that will drive down to cross and get their meds.
I live in a small town on the outskirts of Houston, just to the north of Htown.