Back from the dead

摘要

Though you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise, around half of all Americans get their health care courtesy of the government. There is Medicare, which provides for the elderly; Medicaid, which looks after the poorest; and a big federal programme that covers children in most of the country's worse-off families. To their numbers must be added tens of millions of government employees, from the president and the members of Congress down to teachers, firemen, soldiers and veterans. The actual provision of health services, in hospitals, diagnostic labs and doctors' surgeries is, with a few exceptions (veterans have a NHS-like network of their own), carried out by the private sector. But the government pays the bills.