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NHS and America
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GFree Member
I also think that the financial state of the UK in 1946 might have had more to do with 6 years of world war 2 than the inception of the NHS. Am I wrong?
Not entirely, but quite a substantial part of our financial demise has been to do with paying the Yanks back for Lend/Lease for the next 60 years after WW2. So not only did we manage to fund the biggest war in the history of mankind, we also managed to put in place a state health service the like of which had never been seen before, and rarely is even to this day.
Let Darwinism take its course. they'll die out soon enough.
RichPennyFree MemberNot entirely, but quite a substantial part of our financial demise has been to do with paying the Yanks back for Lend/Lease for the next 60 years after WW2.
Sorry, I don't understand. I agree with what you say about lend lease, but the effect of that was felt mostly after 1946, no? I think what you say in the second sentence was what I was saying, but with less irony?
GFree MemberJust pointing out that if the Yanks feel so patronising to us, they might like to consider the implications of making money out of the war, yet we're the people that don't have to pay for health care at the point of delivery.
mafitzFree MemberI am an American and I am not really smart, or really in tune even. I am 39, married with 4 kids, a part of the middle class taxpayer roles, never missed a vote, and never ever would not take one of my kids to a doctor because I didn't have the money.
I think any parent would sell what they have or do whatever they have for their kids.
I supported this bill but because in the US its the middle class taxpayer that gets the shaft regularly. Its very easy for any country to say they have the answer to an average person's needs, but no country really does. However, what happened in the US was a massive embarrassment and I am so very sorry that your system was debated and trashed by people who have absolutely no clue what your system even is.
The healthcare bill would have given the middle class taxpayers a hand that is sorely needed. Healthcare is not a gamble, but here it is if you are not in the poverty level, or among the wealthy. It is okay and affordable as long as you don't come down with a longterm disease of any kind.
I am just going back to college at 39, and have been a housewife for the last decade. I am not religous, and I am an undeclared voter. So you can take me apart, lord knows you should. But I knew the minute this bill came down that the insurance companies would go all out to attack everything and everyone that could threaten their profits. Why they chose you I do not know. I know that those who were scared to death of this bill were also the same people who needed it.
And I know why those taxpayers were afraid of it. Its impossible to get people to understand until they have been there. The middle class taxpayer in the US makes up the largest percentage of the Federal revenue. These are people that make enough to meet their mortgage payments, the same people who go off to fight wars and die unnoticed, who raise kids in failing school systems that their taxes go to fund, who pay out to a retirement plan that they privately fund while at the same time losing a large portion of their income (nearly equal to their federal tax withholding) to social security for RETIREMENT that most of us will never see, and those that do see it do not get enough to live on literally, and then the Fed comes down and claims that once again these people should TRUST them.
It doesn't happen because the Fed can not be trusted. They can be democrat or republican, it doesn't matter, the fact is they don't care enough about their primary tax base to be trusted, and the middle class taxpayer here knows that. The Fed (Congress and President) take money out of the social security for retireds account everytime they need money. Social Security for "disability" is so overrun with fraud and abuse that we are losing money to it, and it alone costs the taxpayers close to 3 trillion a year.
On top of that our insurance companies spent a large amount of money on their campaign. They fed the feelings of resentment and fear because they knew just what to say to do it.
In the past it has been Canada's system that was trashed, and the Canadians hate us for it too. But I beg you to take into account that many of those "in the know" even senators couldn't differentiate the UK from say England's system. They couldn't tell you how your system works. They couldn't tell you what the UK is. They couldn't tell you what Great Britain is. They couldn't tell you WHERE England is.
They couldn't tell you or us what a doctor in your country has to do to be a doctor, and they could never tell us or you what a doctor in your country makes.
They know nothing about your system. Nothing at all. No more than they can honestly say they know how the US system works for the very people who are paying for it.
My husband is a cardiac cath/ep tech in the US. No healthcare worker or doctor was against this bill. They didn't even debate it. The only people who were against it were in the health insurance end of the industry.
stumpyjonFull MemberI think reading through this thread has actually changed my mind. In principle I think the NHS is a great idea, in practice I've had some pretty bad experiences with it, and the waste and large number of people in it doing non-jobs (and I'm not just talking about the managers either, there are loads of 'nursing staff' doing very little as well) makes me very angry at times. I can also understand the tax payers in America being very worried, in reality they are likely to end up paying twice, for private and state health care which is really what's happening in the UK too.
However the bit that's made me change my mind is the fact that despite massive, cost private health care does not cover you for everything. There are many exclusions and payout have ceilings.
I think what we need to do in the UK is hang onto the health service but start to accept realities too:
1. Health rationing exists, lets be honest about it and ensure that it's rationned properly based on clinical need rather than luck.
2. Maybe certain things shouldn't be free for everyone, already happens with prescriptions and to some extent dentistry. Let's be honest about it, why should someone on a low income miss out on a dentist when someone who can afford to go private takes up and NHS place (I pay to private by the way).
3. Staff – lets tackle one of the big taboos of the NHS. There are some excellent people working at all levels in the NHS, there are also large numbers of jobsworth, work shy muppets wasting billions. Look at the recent press stories about sick levels in the NHS vs the private sector, and no the NHS is not a special case. Point in fact the NHS has been critised for the health of many of it's employees.
4. Unions and work practices, there are still many things that need sorting, not funding but basic operating procedures. IT systems that don't work because the staff (unintentionally) sabotage them clinging to old working practices. I've got personal examples of this.
As I said at the beginning of these ramblings having thought about it, I'm actually rather more pro than anti NHS and am glad I live in a country where it exists. But these knee defences of the NHS by our politicians don't help either. Trouble is sorting out the ingrained working practices, waste and self interest the NHS is plagued with is going to take much bigger balls than any of our current politicians have. In fact they are a large part of the problem, always promising us more, refusing to admit rationning etc. exists, not allowing people to top up medicene costs for the more expensive medicenes that NICE have correctly deemed not value for money all to preserve the myth of universal health care at the point of use, never has existed and never will.
ernie_lynchFree MemberThanks for your post, mafitz. An interesting read.
Ditto
I was particularly surprised with this : "No healthcare worker or doctor was against this bill." Because although I was aware that the medical profession in Latin America has a long history of pretty radical politics (apart from the obvious ones such as Che Guevara and Salvador Allende, I have personally known several Argentine doctors who were very radical, including ones who came to the UK as political refugees during the time of the last junta) I had always assumed that the medical profession in the US was probably very conservative.
Certainly it is fairly conservative in the UK – and was even more so in the past. The British Medical association was very much opposed to the creation of the NHS, fearing that it would reduce the role of doctors to nothing more than that of 'civil servants'. As a consequence the government was forced to grant them a fair amount of concessions. They did embrace the NHS eventually, and now the BMA is a very strong supporter.
So having a 'radical tendency' within the medical profession, is fairly widespread throughout the Americas …… cool 8)
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