My experience with the American health care system.

This is based on one experience, early October '07.

One day at work I developed a mark on my arm that alarmed some of the people here: they thought it was a bad spider bite (caution: spider images). My mark did not look nearly as bad as those images, more like a mosquito bite really. And it was surrounded by different red blotchy-ness. I was urged to go to the hospital, just in case.... And we have a good health care plan.

So off I went, to the nearest hospital of the company that hosts my health care plan (same place I went for my pre-employment drug tests).

I waited in the emergency room for maybe 15 minutes after flashing my super health care card.
I was not visited by a doctor. I was seen by an assistant, who concluded it was a spider bite, but not the one i was warned about at work.

I was given a prescription. I had to pay for the drugs (about double the price for the same thing in Canada, or 20x the same thing in Serbia) because I did not have the health care plan issue drug card. And I went back to work.

The following morning I realized it was poison ivy, which the drugs do nothing for.

Two months later I got a bill from the hospital for $100.