New Zealand has much titghter controls on immigration (both legal and illegal) than the US, and given its geography it’s got a huge built-in advantage in that respect. No way can any kind of socialized medicine work here unless access to it is tightly restricted — as in if you don’t have a biometric ID registration that identifies you via a national database as an authorized user, you get no service. As long as unlimited hordes of people who have never paid into the system are using it, the quality of care will be lousy. The problem is more severe in parts of the country with more illegal immigrants and more welfare addicts, but it’s worsening everywhere.
> New Zealand has much titghter controls on immigration (both legal and illegal) than the US, and given its geography it’s got a huge built-in advantage in that respect. No way can any kind of socialized medicine work here unless access to it is tightly restricted
I agree completely. Because health would probably be state-administered (rather than Federal) it would be exceedingly difficult to implement anything like what we have here. Or more likely impossibly expensive and infeasible.
Even if it were implemented by Washington DC, it would take many years, if not decades, for you to get your infrastructures tuned to suit our model.
What we have in New Zealand has been the product of decades of building: aside from a few philosophical differences it has been done with bilateral support in Parliament. That would probably never happen in the USA.
Step one would have to be to get a handle on your illegal migration problem. Sort that first, and many of your other problems diminish greatly.