Comment by mmmm2

It's not that great even if you have money. Unless you're talking about the type of money needed to pay for all of your treatments out of pocket, and give you access to special private care most people don't even know exists.

My experience has been: if you have an immediate health issue with an obvious solution, you can get pretty good care. Say if you have a broken arm, gun shot wound, heart attack, stroke, etc. Anything uncommon, or that requires ongoing care, is a life sucking nightmare.

I'll give some examples from my own life. I live outside a major metropolitan area. A relative was visiting me and had a stroke in my living room. I called 911, and an ambulance appeared 5 minutes later, in 25 minutes they were in a hospital with a telemedicine link to a stroke expert. The expert said they needed to be brought to a downtown hospital so they were sent there by helicopter. One of the two best neurosurgeons in the city performed an endoscopic removal of the clot and saved their life.

Contrast this with a different relation who struggles with chronic pain and spine problems and has spent the last 20 years bouncing around various doctors, battling insurance companies, pharmacies, waiting to be seen, waiting endlessly for specialists, tests, and having to keep track of all of their information themselves because the system is fragmented and every office wants a complete restatement to their medical history.