Bentirran
Thanks for clearing up the supplemental insurance bit. Very concise and clear answer. I'm also glad you pointed out Scotland's difference from England and Wales. I kind of assumed that being "UK" that everything would be pretty similar. I, like most Americans probably, don't have a good grasp on the internal political differences between the 3 countries on the island.

I hope my post original reply to you didn't come off as condescending, or implying that the American model is better than a social/British model. I feel that each system has pros and cons, like most of life. As for America having the best health system in the world, I don't now about that. We've got some pretty dismal statistics in certain areas, such as neonatal/newborn death rates. The US can be well behind the curve in some areas!

I've just been fed a lot of info in the last 4 years of school, in both health-econ and ethics classes. For example, the figure of "45 million Americans without health insurance" is always thrown around. That's about 1/6 of the US population, obviously something needs to change with our system. I just wanted to point out some ideas of why our system is the way it is, and some areas where our 2 systems differ.