While I am ok with our health system in Aus, I feel a lot of American's can be misled about what our system is.

A lot of Australians still have to pay out of pocket for a lot of medical costs, and for non-urgent surgeries through the public system, there are often long wait lists, up to multiple years. The only way to skip these wait lists, is by going privately, and either paying thousands of dollars out of pocket, or having private insurance to maybe have it fully covered (but maybe no fully covered).

For people with health care cards (low income/welfare), most medical costs are fully covered (bulk-billed), however for someone like myself, who earns just enough to not qualify for a health care card, but no enough to be well off, I still have to pay for private medical insurance, on top paying for healthcare in my taxes.

We currently pay arund $4k a year as a couple for health insurance, on top of our govt healthcare, and yet still have to pay approx $50 out of pocket for all GP appointments, and between $70 - $200 out of pocket for specialist appointments, which are partly covered by govt healthcare (approx $30 rebate on a $100 bill), and not covered at all by any private insurance.

Our system is better than not having a public health system, but it is still a broken, splintered system.