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Or rather it might but will only cover you up to a certain amount - once you've gone over that amount then you're on your own.
Emergency care? Plus you're right of course.
You do know the idea behind tax is that EVERYBODY benefits from all the collective services that are paid for by the tax EVERYBODY pays
You are thinking of insurance. Taxes are different, some pay more some pay less and some pay none and the recipients could be any or all.
[quote=CaptainFlashheart said]Trolling level - Jedi.
Waaaay too amateur to get anything approaching Jedi.
He's slacking.
Amount spent on healthcare as expressed as a percentage of GDP (2013):
U.S.: 17.1%
UK: 9.1%
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS
Just needed a vent
A grommet?
A colleague here has a relative in the US who very recently went into hospital for a routine hernia operation. They gave him a sex change instead.
Worst. Excuse. Ever!
If he didn't he needs to grow a pair.
You, sir, owe me one new keyboard!
Starting to look into private healthcare (full package) at the moment, and even with critical/cancer etc cover, seems pretty reasonable. If there was a mechanism to allow NHS "opt out" and so do this pre-tax, might be viable. I'm not claiming to have all the answers or know 100% at this stage, but seems like a good idea worth investigating further. We shouldn't just hold onto something because that's how it has been for quite a while.That's not any form of ideological statement BTW, purely a recognition that it's good to explore all potential options.
You cant buy a package that covers the same as the NHS. If you need emergency care then the private sector cannot provide. You cant call a private 999 if needed. Also critical care is provided by the NHS, not private providers.
The reason this is the case is because its too expensive for the private sector to set up and make a profit on. To give you an example it costs £1500 per night to keep someone in intensive care when done at scale because you need expensive equipement and about 7 or 8 nurses to staff each bed
In the US if you have good healthcare you will be covered for most ailments but your insurance provider will have preferred treatments and hospitals who will have preferred medication providers...
If you want to step outside of these options you are on your own... For example my boss can take the blood pressure medication on the preferred list for his doctor and then keep falling over as it makes his legs numb or he can opt to pay for consultations at a different hospital in order to get a different medication which is also covered by the insurance but is not on the original hospitals preferred (sponsored/bribed) list...
If you do not have good healthcare you could end up out of pocket $5-700 per month with a $5000 deductible and only the most basic options covered.
The NHS does not discriminate based on the money in your pocket or the insurance you posses. The doctors are not taken on holiday by Pharmaceutical companies and the hospitals do not push for the most treatment/medications that the insurance will cover. There is no need for teams of bailiffs and debt collection agencies to be employed. There is however a limitation to the money available which is why we have things like NICE and is why sometimes there is not excess capacity waiting for sick people.
Who is privatising the NHS?
Hope you feel better soon. I went for a check recently and go recommended further treatment. Gave me a choice of immediate private consultation of slight wait for NHS service. Given his diagnosis there seemed no urgency and done and dusted very well in local hospital and on a Saturday. Had a fun chat with radiographer about local MP (Hunt) !!!
have a look at virgin care, not the sexual site but the one run by a cahp who also has a trainset and some planes hotels and a island.
and see all the stuff theyve privatised on the quiet.
have a look at virgin care, not the sexual site but the one run by a cahp who also has a trainset and some planes hotels and a island.
and see all the stuff theyve privatised on the quiet.
He has been very quietly acquiring walk-in centres, minor injuries units etc an astonishing rate.
The care is actually pretty good because most staff have been Tuped across from when thhey were NHS run facilities.....the problem being from a staff point of view is that there is no NHS pension scheme meaning loyally is lost as staff turnover is huge, staff are on the constant lookout for better pay. In the old days you'd join the NHS and spend your career there knowing that your pay wasn't great but a decent pension awaited you at the end of 30-40yrs....now people job hop, companies like Reliance, Virgin, Tascor, CRG, Capita etc merge, change names annually etc and take the easy part of NHS care, ie the minor stuff, they're not interested in trauma care, geriatric wards etc as they are loss makers.
I do agree something has to change, the size and age the population was never envisaged to be this big.....it's time to strip back the NHS to what it was intended for, emergency care and repairing life changing chronic conditions....nose jobs, tit jobs etc can do one and the people who want these precedures can raid their own piggy bank instead.
The NHS is unique. Is that a good thing or not ?
The NHs was created in a very different age and with a very different set of objectives to those it has to face today
The brutal truth is that the nhs is very good at certain thungs (life saving critical care) but third rate at many others.
Reform of the nhs gets many peoples hackles up and generates much abuse but the fact is other nations don't manage their health systems this way, we should oirselves why is that ?
To add to the OPs post my mother hurt her back gardening, for 8 months the nhs did nothing. She would not allow me to pay for private treatment as she believed the nhs would see hee right. Eventually being faced with not being able to attend my wedding she relented, treatment was less than £500. For 8 months my mother could barely walk for the sake of £500. The NHS is broken, it is not working. It cannot cope in todays world.
1) you can already get private treatment on NHS. At point of referral from GP you should be offered a choice of any provider including private. When I got my hernia done Nuffield and others were an option locally. I went NHS for various reasons. It was same consultant for private and NHS but that is another discussion
2) you can opt to have private insurance now. What always amazes me about the opt out of tax because I'll pay myself argument is the short sightedness of it. As if you get no benefit from healthcare, education etc provided to the wider society - a healthy and educated workforce must be basis of strong economy. Secondly, opt out fine when younger healthier and earning. Then opt back in if become chronically ill or when retire? Even US pays for healthcare for retirees through tax - which people still pay if opted out. So you would either have to opt out for ever and be in deep trouble or still end up paying virtually the same tax
3) Private healthcare is very inefficient. The incentives in the system are wrong and individuals have little agency in keeping costs down as there is a massive assymetry of knowledge, power between patient insurance company and provider. So would end up paying a lot more for narrower coverage but nicer hotel services
well done Jamby you managed to contradict yourself in your own post again. The NHS is apparently both "very good" and "broken" and "not working"
😆
Old dog - Private healthcare can be no more / no less efficient than the NHS but the views are often distorted by the fact when most people think of "private" they only make comparisons to healthcare in the USA.
The Dutch and German systems (where there are co payments and an insured element) manage to deliver better care at a cost equivalent to the NHS when massive unfunded pension liabilities in the latter are taken into account. The clinical outcomes are often better on many conditions as well - the systems are better at diagnosing early, treating quickly and getting the treatment right first time and this reflects higher patient satisfaction scores.
Having worked with Dutch and German colleagues in the UK, where they have made use of the NHS they are amazed at how slow it is and wonder at why the processes don't seem to be oriented around the patient. There's detailed comparison of different healthcare systems in the report linked to below.
My experience is as a occasional customer of the
NHS only.
I am lucky enough to have some private insurance so whenever diagnosed as requiring medical attention I'm given the option to see the same person, sometimes in the same place or maybe in another place with nicer wallpaper in either a) six to twelve weeks on the nhs or b) next week privately.
Whichever option I choose, many of the staff will be from an agency or company other than the NHS.
This seems like a properly British kind of solution to unpalitable question of privatising the NHS, do it without admitting it without actually facing up to the problem and applying a proper logical solution that everyone understands.
Just to add-
Given theres likely more than an average number of medical types reading this thread, I'll just also say you'll have my thanks regardless of whever you get paid from my taxes or my wallet.
The Dutch and German systems (where there are co payments and an insured element) manage to deliver better care at a cost equivalent to the NHS when massive unfunded pension liabilities in the latter are taken into account.
quick back of beermat calculation based on relative %age of GDP spent on health between UK (massively less than USA) and Germany/Holland (a bit closer to USA): are these [i]unfunded[/i]* pension liabilities really worth 13% of the total uk spend on health? 😯
* i stress unfunded because recent hikes in pension contributions and retirement age changes (aka changes/cuts in pay, terms and conditions if you apply the logic of some folk on here) means that if the government actually saved my contributions (rather than just pouring them back in the pot and letting later governments pay for it) its theoretically less underfunded than it was
Having worked with Dutch and German colleagues in the UK, where they have made use of the NHS they are amazed at how slow it is and wonder at why the processes don't seem to be oriented around the patient.
I have actual first hand knowledge of the Dutch health system, having lived in Holland for some years. Of course this is anecdotal, but I know it to be true.
1. I had a condition (which I decline to describe further for delicacy's sake!!). I went to a doctor and was diagnosed and he prescribed something. The thing he prescribed was so radical that on one occasion I fainted with pain in the toilets at work. I later described the condition and symptoms to a friend who is a NHS consultant. The friend told me that the treatment prescribed was totally inappropriate to a condition that had not been confirmed with a biopsy. I later received a different treatment and the condition went away.
2. My wife collapsed at home and had to be taken to hospital, the ambualnce team having called the fire dept to smash down the door. Over the course of the next few days she was lying alone in a bed with nurses coming round on a very infrequent basis. They had to be reminded to hydrate her, and to perform basic duties. When she got home she got a big bill, despite having insurance.
So - yes, just anecdotes, but personal experience that suggests to me that the last thing we need to do is to look to Holland for answers.
I think the govt plan is to let the NHS get worse until people want it to be privatised.
^^
I can picture this happening 🙁
The Europen social insurance system is closer to tax based than full private. It's massively regulated and operates within tight constraints. It's a judgement about whether it is more efficient - higher proportion of GDP spent for similar volumes of care but so difficult to measure output as quality is difficult to measure and subjective
My experiences of the NHS have been excellent, however, I think some of that has to do with my GF being in charge of ICU, and the consultants knowing her and me, also when I was first diagnosed in A&E, it was a mate of a mate who was the consultant on that night who took charge of my case, I cant imagine regular care being on a par with my experiences, for example when I have had to go to other hospitals, its been very lets say routine, with little interest being shown by all staff concerned, but I do think what the NHS needs is more support from the public, we need educating on how to use the NHS, and this needs reinfocrcing, the abuse of A&E for a start. and sticking to appointments, just some education of the public could help alleviate some of the pressure
Just for information, my parents live in Germany and pay 370 euros each into the Krankenkasse (health insurance scheme). They are 75. The service is ok, some things are better some are worse and there are similar preferred treatments you can be restricted to. There does seem to be quite a bit of admin involved if you go to the doctor too.
I had a quick look at my payslip - I pay less in central government taxation (including NI) than they do in health insurance. If I was 75 I'd be paying less.
I like Germany - it is mainly much better run than the UK but I don't think I'd want to swap the NHS.
andyrm - MemberNot sure yet - still looking
Phone 999 and wait for a private ambulance. The price of private healthcare in the UK is massively influenced by the fact that they don't have to bother doing lots of essential stuff.
I've lived in a country with privatised health.
All I can say is that the NHS is effing brilliant.
The only people who would benefit from privatisation are Cameron's cronies. (Check the list of parliamentarians with investments in companies involved in private health care.)
I moved to the US in 2013. Healthcare here is truly mindboggling. Those who can afford to pay do so, and pay handsomely. They get a certain level of convenience, lots of tests and a highly disjointed service. Those who can sort-of afford to pay or can't get stressed out on whether they can afford to be ill or not.
People should not fear illness on the basis of them not being able to afford treatment. Not in a 'highly developed Western civilization'.
The NHS is unique
No, it's not.