NHS USA
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- moth0
I don't think I'm that wrong Beeachboy. I was in and out of hospital when I was younger with bad asthma. I saw the same consultant on the NHS as I saw privately when my dad was insured - this was at Frimley - an NHS hospital.
I've also had problems with my back for which I had a couple of MRI scans. One of these scans was private, one wasn't. Both were at the same facility. I waited weeks for one, and walked straight in for the other (I think you know which is which).
I simply don't buy that the two systems work independently of each other. In my own personal experience, they are joined at the hip to the obvious detriment of NHS patients.
- Don't the private insurances have to pay the NHS a fair rate for access to services?ribit
- I mean the NHS wouldn't just give stuff away, otherwise I'd setup my own cheap insurance and use the facilities too.ribit
- They pay to jump the queue. Same thing no matter how you dress it.moth
- But the NHS and the community must get something out of that? (builds more facilities or something?)ribit
- and I'm hoping queue-jumping is not on life-critical stuff, they wouldn't allow that... right?ribit
- 23kon0
Moth, just tune into the news when you get home - its been choc full of americans making tits of themselves over this.
The UK should organise a mob crowd all along our west coast and we can all point westwards at the same time and laugh.
It'd be beautiful!
- alarms0
Ive lived in UK for 56 ye4ars and am still happy Apart from the odd Hiccup in the system wher someone says NO we cant spend 50,000 dollars for a course of tablets that May or May not extend someones abitlty to keep out of hospital for another 3 Months with a better quality of life BUT IT WONT CURE IT I am happy with the health service .
I have never heard of someone losing there house / car etc cause they broke there leg . Or No you can only have 7 Treatments cause thats all your Insurance allows . What we need is a basic Health care for all , With Insurance for the rich if they must live the I WANT IT NOW LIFESTYLE rather than over here wher I wait 3 days to see a doctor if it not an emergancy
DAVE
- sikma0
I can go to a doctor for whatever I want, whenever I want for free.
In my eyes it is the single most important function of my government. Regardless of how efficient it is currently run, I would trade it for almost any other right.
The health of a society is of too much inportance to be entrusted to a private interest.
- sikma0
The weirdest part of this debate is how active and anger people are over it. This is about empowering people. To bad these same people were sitting at home when your government decided to start a war it can't win.
- vaxorcist0
REL The current US debate.... yes, there's alot of hysteria, and very little rational debate. The amount of total misinformation is astounding, it's as if fact checking no longer matters to some people. Why people who don't check any facts are actually taken seriously is rather amazing to me.
I have lived in UK, I had great care there for a nasty sinus infection and an injury, and I had good care at insane prices and insurance randomness in USA, as well as good care with invisible insurance payments, so I had no idea what it cost....
What does surprise me is how little anyone is willing to try to decide if a treatment at X cost is worth Y benefit.... yes, I know is sounds like rationing, but if you spend according to squeeky wheels, it's still rationed, but it just means that a different group of people are rationed out of the care.... If it's not rationed in any way, we're looking at infinite cost pretty soon....
- BaskerviIle0
I am so bemused why some right wing americans see a state-run system as almost communist. Why do they think anything socialist is bad, a very confused anachronistic byproduct of the cold war.
The US postal system is nationalised as are the roads and many other things over there.The NHS is probably the best thing about britain. I have family and friends in the US and the things they tell me about getting medical treatment, especially a friend who was unemployed is awful. Some of the stories in Michael Moore's Sicko were terrible too (I know he's incredibly biased etc).
I have experienced both NHS and private healthcare (since I had a couple of ops last year privately because I have free private health insurance through my job).
I can't say private was any better, in fact my surgeon could have seen me either on NHS or privately. I chose private because he could see me literally the next week rather than 3 months on the NHS waiting list. The difference was he chose to do his private patients on the weekend ouside of his normal work hours. Also I was treated in a private hospital in my own very clean room, and it was all paid for either way.As for waiting lists. Yes in general there are waiting lists on the NHS but one thing they are very good at is prioritising those that need attention first.
I have been told by family friends (who are oncologists) that if you have cancer, NHS is by far the best way to go, far better than privately.The NHS is something that I'm proud of, and I feel sorry for US citizens who need care and can't get it. Also talk to Norwegians or other countries where the state taxes are high but they get incredibly good healthcare.
Americans don't want more taxes but will pay shitloads for medical. Whereas if they paid slightly more tax, it would be free for everyone.