the wonderful world of private healthcare US style

Why do you think ‘free at the point of delivery’ is not important?

Because you can’t separate the way a healthcare is funded, or certainly to the tune it is funded from the care you receive.

As per my first post, there are holes in both systems and having experienced both systems (and other nations) first hand I can quite happily say I have been both disappointed and delighted with elements of both). Neither is perfect by a long way.

However, to march around with the blinkers on thinking that the NHS is free is mis-guided, its simply not.

Lack of insurance linked to 45,000 deaths a year[/url]

But I didn’t accuse insurers of being greedy, I accused them and the hospitals of being profit-making companies. So they have a vested interest in doing MORE to you than might be strictly necessary, or at least making it cost more. This has advantages I imagine, but it also has disadvantages, especially when cover is limited.

The insurers don’t want to pay for any more than is necessary. The insurers will have what’s know as a Preferred Provider Network (PPO) where they have negotiated heavy discounts with the providers. Typically these savings will be around 40%. Even if a claim is incurred outside of the PPO, the insurer will push back on the provider. Typically these claims are passed to a 3rd party administrator who will push back on the doctor or hospital bill and demand a reduced price.

Because you can’t separate the way a healthcare is funded, or certainly to the tune it is funded from the care you receive

Hmm.. so are you saying that socialised healthcare necessarily means lower standards?

Btw we don’t think the NHS is free, we’re not that dim. For me, the fact that you pay according to your means is vital. Unemployed – no problem. Fit and rich – you pay much more than you use, but you can afford it. This is very very important imo.

Hmm.. so are you saying that socialised healthcare necessarily means lower standards?

From my experiences, yes. But, for a lot of people it would be the complete opposite.

I’m not sure I have the energy to debate much further, as you can imagine with a large family containing British, Americans and the odd Canadian thrown in for good mix, this debate happens A LOT.

However, to march around with the blinkers on thinking that the NHS is free is mis-guided, its simply not.

Very true, although on average, compared to the cost of US insurance it is essentially free, as the amount per person spent on the NHS in total is less than the amount spent on the US healthcare system by the US government alone. The up front costs that you pay directly are essentially just extra money that they have to pay out. At least that is what it looks like according to those figures on the link I posted earlier. It isn’t like we have: NHS – pay by tax, USA – pay direct, it actually appears to be USA – pay the same amount by tax, then pay direct on top of that.

From my experiences, yes

Surely you have to appreciate that going by your experience isn’t going to give great answers? Unless you’ve been spending a lot of time in a lot of hospitals…

More developments like this will have an interesting impact on the funding of healthcare in the UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/05/questions-grow-over-circle-health

Surely you have to appreciate that going by your experience isn’t going to give great answers? Unless you’ve been spending a lot of time in a lot of hospitals…

Not sure which tree you are barking up here.

If you quoted the whole statement it also ended with

for a lot of people it would be the complete opposite

If you want to start debating how many times I have been to hospital in different countries then I really don’t have the energy.

If you want to start debating how many times I have been to hospital in different countries

Really not a matter for debate, is it?

for a lot of people it would be the complete opposite

Well since we are talking about health services for entire populations, your post was basically meaningless then.

Don’t NHS GPs get paid per procedure?

Couldn’t be further from the truth.
We are being highly incentivised to reduce the amount of secondary care activity.
Yes we are paid per item for certain things like flu jabs as these are overall cost saving measures.
The NHS uses gps as gate keepers to control access to expensive and over medicalised hospital based care. Because it is a much more cost effective way to do it.
Simples

You really want to debate over how many times i’ve been to a particular hospital? You’ve lost a bit of perspective there!

Cheerio 🙂

If you believe that the US has a superior health care system, you’d sort of expect to see a [relatively] high life expectancy rather than one that falls below most of the Western world and at a similar level to Albania

to march around with the blinkers on thinking that the NHS is free is mis-guided, its simply not.

if you have no money whatsoever you get treatment and no cost to yourself. If you do not pay tax you get free healthcare. Yes some of us pay tax but even if you do not and never have you will get healthcare. It is free for some and free for all at the point of delivery.
I am sure the quality of care will vary but if we spent more would get a better service. They pay more so [ I assume] get a better service for some and a much worse service for those who have no service.

Zulu-Eleven – Member

You make the mistake of believing that Healthcare funding in the UK is covered by tax receipts… in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re spending more money than we take in, and a big chunk of this is on healthcare – we’re paying for the NHS by putting it on the mortgage!

Per-capita health expenditure for the UK, 2010, was (US$) 3129

Now, how many of us pay that a year in total taxes?

😕 Eh ? ………. how many of us pays £2000 a year in total taxes ? Well most people who have a job I guess, plus a lot of people who don’t even work such as retired people.

Thanks to your government Zulu-Eleven, everybody now pays 20% tax on most things they buy, except food. It takes the average person well over a month’s wages every year just to pay their VAT.

Averaged out, every adult in the UK pays £11,000 in total taxes every year.

Why are you asking how many of us pay £2000 a year in total taxes? 😕

WHO Healthcare Analysis[/url]

Being here in the US, I don’t think I will try to wade into the argument as I don’t know a lot about the UK health system in general, but reading the thread brought up a question:

I hear antecdotal stories about how long it takes to get medical treatment in the UK, especially some of the more specialized and/or sophisticated tests, i.e. MRIs, etc and wondered if that is actually the case there or more myth than fact?

Despite my bleeding heart leftism, I still quite like the idea of having personal responsibility in what your life choices are likely to cost in terms of health care.

Why not tax the crap out of unhealthy life choices for a start? Ie drinking, smoking, road traffic collisions and drugs. Oh, that’s right we already do on the first three.

Duty on alcohol, tobacco and fuel is already huge but most of it ends up nowhere near healthcare (or indeed the safety/quality of roads and policing their safe use). Wouldn’t solve the defecit but would mean booze duty pays for the illness it caused etc. (I mentioned taxing drugs but that is a whole other debate!)

I guess getting things like an MRI are going to be longer here but it’ll depend to some extent on why it’s needed
I got one on my knee after waiting around 2 weeks

I guess in the US you’ll get one next day?
Out of interest, if someone didn’t have insurance there and required the scan for a knee injury, how long would the wait be to get it on Medicare [if that’s what it’s called]

how many of us pays £2000 a year in total taxes ?

Heavy drinkers and smokers, easily, without bringing council or income tax into it.

how many of us pays £2000 a year in total taxes ?

I paid a lot more than that with one purchase last week

busydog – Member

……………..

I hear antecdotal stories about how long it takes to get medical treatment in the UK, especially some of the more specialized and/or sophisticated tests, i.e. MRIs, etc and wondered if that is actually the case there or more myth than fact?

It depends on the urgency and on how good your local hospital is. Have a major injury / illness and there is no delay, have a chronic condition and there will be delays. Have a non urgent condition and you will wait.

also some treatments / diagnostic tools of little proven use are not used – s people cannot always get the latest wizz bang treatment they have read about in the papers

@uplink

As I have reached a “certain” age and am now on the Medicare program (no longer have personal health insurance–probably couldn’t get it anyway with a case history of Melanoma), I was able to get an MRI next day for a shoulder injury—-my cost was a co-pay of about $30 for seeing the specialist. My co-pay for my regular doctor is $10 and I can, more often than not, get in the same day (which I was yesterday, 45 minutes after calling).

Prior to reaching the official Social Security/Medicare age, I was on my wife’s company healthcare plan and we paid, as I recall, about $250/month coverage for both (which is taken out pre-tax, so lowers your taxable income). With me off the policy now, she pays $110/month. My medicare basic medical costs me $1116.00 a year and I elected to take out a supplemental policy that costs $650.00 a year.

Hospitals here can’t turn someone away from the Emergency Room if they don’t have insurance–they have to treat them.

@tandemjeremy

It sounds like we can get in for some of the specialized stuff quicker (my MRI for the shoulder was somethng chonic I had lived with for a year and finally it got irritating enough to go to an orthopedic doctor), but doctors here won’t always prescribe the latest, greatest tests that are still of uncertain value either.

Another, somewhat related issue here, is all of the extensive advertising by the pharma companies on TV, magazines, etc of every new wonder product under the sun, which results in everyone asking their doctors to prescribe it.

Another, somewhat related issue here, is all of the extensive advertising by the pharma companies on TV, magazines, etc of every new wonder product under the sun, which results in everyone asking their doctors to prescribe it.

I did notice all the drug ads
You seem to have quite a problem with erectile dysfunction over there – if the TV ads are anything to go by that is 🙂

This whole thread made me think of another, related situation that is especially prevalent here in New Mexico, as well as with the other border states with Mexico.
Our hospital emergency rooms are innundated with illegal aliens seeking treatment, not just for emergencies, but for everything you can think of–and by law they have to be treated, so it innundates the hospital systems and drives their costs up tremendously.

@uplink — not sure, but I have reason to believe that our politicians and Hugh Hefner are the primary customers of Viagra. 😆

I hear antecdotal stories about how long it takes to get medical treatment in the UK, especially some of the more specialized and/or sophisticated tests, i.e. MRIs, etc and wondered if that is actually the case there or more myth than fact?

It used to be much worse than it is now, so a lot of stories probably date from them. As above though, if it’s urgent you do get it quickly.

BUT

What you need to remember is that you are still free to buy private health insurance just the same as in the US. However here it’s supplemental to the NHS so you still use the NHS for general doctor visits and long term cancer care or whatever, just that your private insurance will cover you for.. well.. whatever you buy it for I suppose. Most of the IT permanent jobs I’ve had came with health insurance, but I never used it.

My grandad had Alzheimers. He was in hospital for 7 years before he died. In the US his insurance would have run out by yr 3. I appreciate that self centred halfwits like zulu11 would prefer to have had him turfed out of hospital so they could save couple of pennies on their taxes, For myself, I thank the system that spared us the grief of looking after him and allowed him to live those years in, and to die with dignity. And when I hear of someone else dealing with a family member with a long term condition. my first thought isn’t for the impact on my pocket, but that I hope we keep giving the level of care my grandad got.
Sadly, we probably won’t.

I hear antecdotal stories about how long it takes to get medical treatment in the UK, especially some of the more specialized and/or sophisticated tests, i.e. MRIs, etc and wondered if that is actually the case there or more myth than fact?

Working in an NHS Radiology Dept, we do about 97.5% of MRIs in under 2 weeks from receiving the request. Most of the remainder are either DNAs (patient Did Not Attend) or are non-critical examinations requiring a specialist set up that we try to do in groups.

Not anecdotal, based on regular attendance at meetings where waiting times are discussed.

Don’t know about MRI’s etc, but the last time i had cause to visit the A&E Dept was a Sunday evening after a stack on the bike.
Bloody sore elbow, possible fracture i thought. Got to the hospital and expected to have to return for an x-ray because it was a Sunday night and i thought there would be no x-ray staff on duty.
Seen within 30 minutes by a nice lady Doctor, shunted off down to the x-ray dept and photo’ed by another nice lady*.

Happy with my treatment and with the manner of the staff – lovely people.

*Lady had to re-shoot the elbow a couple of times saying “I’m sorry, i’m normally good at elbows”. I replied “S’ok, i’m normally good at riding my bike!” 😆

It’s nice when emergency room people are pleasant—knowing what they have to deal with 24/7 it would make a lot of people really cranky. I used to date an emergency room nurse and some of her stories about the incoming patients and their various conditions made me cringe—more than I would want to deal with.

It’s nice when emergency room people are pleasant

You have ’emergency rooms’ ? Here in the UK we have accident and emergency departments.

Socialised healthcare rocks.

In the UK, $2815 per person per year, to cover everyone in the country All paid for from tax.

In the US, they spend $6719 per person per year, to cover some people for emergency only treatment, and the lucky ones for all treatment. On average, people spend $3500 themselves on healthcare, and the government spends $3200.

So, the US government spends more as a % of gdp per person and they still have to pay for insurance

and the grand result……………….

the average life expectancy in the usa is 78.7 yrs
the average life expectancy in the uk is 80.1 yrs
(source world bank for 2009)

conclusion
america is stoopid

and our emergency number is bigger than yours …these things are important for socialism to take hold
america is stoopid but still the land of the free and the home of the brave

A & E at Royal Sussex in Brighton on a Friday night was an experience. Luckily there was a policewoman waiting to be seen with a suspected broken arm and her two colleagues were able to ‘subdue’ the very drunk and abusive woman who was trying to attack the triage nurse (don’t know if they’re actually called that but that’s what he was doing).

Didn’t envy anyone working there at that time but very thankful they were!

@ernie_lynch

Same kind of service–just different titles—here the ER is an entire department within the hospital

here the ER is an entire department within the hospital

Those crazy yanks……….do you still ask where the “bathroom” is when you’re in a pub ?

.

.

😉

When I need a slash in the states they just tell me I’m talking non-cents.