Most other countries extend that level of service and coverage to the entire population. Not just the military. The whole attitude that receiving good healthcare is somehow a privilege that needs to be earned is really alien to most of the world. Also, I think you are romanticizing a bit how good that system actually is even for the military. E.g. I seem to run into lots of homeless veterans when I go to the US; most of them with obvious health and mental issues; possibly directly connected to their activities for the military.
In any case, you get born, you die. Two absolute certainties in people's live. Dying typically involves medical bills and delaying that also involves medical bills throughout your life. That's why medical insurance is not optional in most countries. The notion that children can be uninsured or that people die because of entirely preventable and curable conditions just because they lack insurance is not a popular one outside of the US. It's not communism/socialism, just common decency and pragmatism.
The whole attitude that receiving good healthcare is somehow a privilege that needs to be earned is really alien to most of the world.
Which has nothing whatsoever to do with my point that all the hand wringing, critique and analyses of the broken American medical system conveniently overlooks a piece of the picture that's fairly substantial and largely unquantified.
Without including that data, you have an incomplete picture. Period.
Also, I think you are romanticizing a bit how good that system actually is even for the military.
I'm certainly not one of its many naysayers.
Some of the assets of our Military Medical system:
The David Grant USAF Medical Center (DGMC) at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, California, is the U.S. Air Force’s largest medical center in the continental United States and serves military beneficiaries throughout eight western states. It is a fully accredited hospital with a National Quality Approval gold seal by the Joint Commission, and serves more than 500,000 Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care System eligible beneficiaries in the immediate San Francisco-Sacramento vicinity from 17 counties covering 40,000 square miles.
The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) is the largest biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Official mandate: Basic and applied medical research supporting U.S. military operations is the focus of WRAIR leaders and scientists. Despite the focus on the military, however, the institute has historically also addressed and solved a variety of non-military medical problems prevalent in the United States and the wider world.
DGMC is where I got the cutting edge diagnosis that helped save my life.
I seem to run into lots of homeless veterans when I go to the US; most of them with obvious health and mental issues; possibly directly connected to their activities for the military.
I happen to know a lot about homelessness. You see a lot of homeless veterans in part because military members know how to camp and tend to be less tied to a city or state than most civilians. They have a relationship to the federal government which helps make a lot of local stuff less relevant to their lives.
Of course, service to country chews up a lot of people. That's part of why the military has its own medical system: to honor its obligation to the soldiers who so often wind up maimed in the course of doing their duty.
"You see a lot of homeless veterans in part because military members know how to camp and tend to be less tied to a city or state than most civilians."
Really?! Homlessness is a lifestyle choice? You are not really selling it here.
That isn't remotely what I said. Though, in fact, some homeless people do frame it that way.
In any outcome, there is some part that is beyond one's control and some part that is choice. Most homeless people wish they had better options, but some "choose" homelessness as the lesser evil.
Having skills, like survival skills, can make sleeping rough or in a tent that much less problematic and intimidating.
In any case, you get born, you die. Two absolute certainties in people's live. Dying typically involves medical bills and delaying that also involves medical bills throughout your life. That's why medical insurance is not optional in most countries. The notion that children can be uninsured or that people die because of entirely preventable and curable conditions just because they lack insurance is not a popular one outside of the US. It's not communism/socialism, just common decency and pragmatism.