Both of my DC were born here. As math says maternity care here is full of choice even if you can't afford insurance (medicare was very good pre obamacare but don't know about now). Basically you pick your obn based on your birth style and hospital/ midwife unit preferences and their affiliations with insurance. I love my obn and so darn happy with the care I received.
My experience with DD was that they wanted to do avoid medical intervention and some significant effort was made to achieve that. I was signed off work at 35 weeks and put me on bed rest for the remainder of my pregnancy. I was on a salt free diet which was MISERABLE, going to the chiropractor every other day as my sciatica was just awful. While I was anemic they didn't give me iron tablets because my obn said they would give me piles and she wanted to 'save my ass'. I was 32 weeks along and she said the benefits were just not there.
As for the delivery, well even though DD was measured at 8lb8oz and had stopped growing at 37 weeks due to preeclampsia I didn't qualify for a CS by the hospital (they have a standards board which decides on the criteria for being qualified as an elective CS for all births and having a CS for your first birth doesn't automatically mean you can have a CS with your 2nd). I was induced (painful), was in labour for 27 hours (very much more painful until I had wonderful drugs) and then had DD by EMCS. Under the direction of my obn I had acupuncture before induction and again 12 hours later plus a couple of massages to help with the pain as I wanted to avoid an epidural early on. When I wanted an epidural I had one about 10mins after asking (they have an anesthetist whose sole responsibility is to administer epidurals to ladies in labour). My CS didn't feel like an EMCS as it was talked through at 2pm with my obn and we reached a decision based on that conversation and I went in at 9pm. My care afterwards was nothing short of amazing.
With DS they let me go over my due date and I was due to have a VBAC until DS's head popped out of my pelvis (most painful thing ever). They scanned him and at 10lb6oz they decided that a vaginal birth was a definite no.
Basically I love that I have the same 3 doctors managing all 3 of my pregnancies. It would never happen that way in the UK. Also, for me knowing the doctor who performed the CS was important. She knew my medical history, knew what sort of pregnancy I had experienced and one of the 3 obns checked in on me everyday while I was in the hospital.
Some of my friends have gone to other hospitals that are happy to let anyone do a CS while some have gone to the midwife unit attached to another excellent hospital that has a similar approach to where I delivered. I personally think that in the UK there needs to be much better funding of maternity services. People in the UK always compare the NHS to the US because it is almost the polar opposite. It plays on peoples fears that without the NHS there would be no more care as healthcare is unaffordable etc etc. I actually think it is interesting maternity services are not compared more to Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Sweden and Norway. All have different forms of socialized medical care with very different approaches to maternity provision.