Much thanks again for all the honest and unbiased information.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Out of interest, what kind of scare stories do Sarah Palin and other such people concoct about the NHS?

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Rated "M" for meaty.

A handful of years ago I had an existing problem in my knee become more than just an old injury. i saw a General Practitioner in a walk-in clinic. she referred me to a specialist, I had an appointment within a week. I got the treatment I needed within a couple of weeks (around 10 days after iirc, so within 2 weeks from my first appointment at the walk-in clinic,) and was also on some sort of prescription drug for a few weeks. Out of pocket cost was some dreadful coffee like ceri said (actually it was dreadful hot chocolate, as I don't drink coffee, and a kindly elderly lady had warned me off the tea.) My prescription was something like $20.00 total, oh and I had to buy a compression sock to wear for a while, which wasn't covered. I bought 3 of em, so I could rinse them out, they recommended not machine washing, and I sweat pretty good. i think these cost the most money, like $10 or $12 dollars each.

All in all I spent in the neighborhood of $50.00, though 20-ish was entirely optional, for my appointments, surgery, aftercare, drugs and supplies.

This was a really painless experience in all facets, physically, financially, and also hassle free.

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I'm not an expert, but I play one on the internet.

Once again, I don't want this to be politicized.

Many pundits, commentators and politicians complain about the dangerous trend of new entitlements and "rights," and to a certain degree I understand and agree with them.

However, I have yet to have someone link the providing of healthcare becoming the right to healthcare.

In the US, we have the right to free speech. That doesn't mean the government has to provide a microphone or a megaphone or a means of conveyance (like a newspaper column or blog) to everyone.

The government also provides roads and highways (paid for by our tax dollars). By your logic, they would next be required to give us cars, too (since transportation has become a "right").

Likewise, a national healthcare plan would not necessarily grant people the right to healthcare, just the availability. To grant this as a right would require a constitutional amendment.

I'm going to break my own anti-political opinion restriction (after all, I started the thread ) and say the only things that massively concern me about a national healthcare plan are (1) the cost, tax-wise and (2) the fact that the government can't manage it's way out of a paper bag. The bureaucracy involved in the simple act of renewing a our driver's license is staggeringly stupid (and that's the state government, not the federal).

The entire question wasn't, "Is this a good idea?"...rather, it was, "This impression has been promoted by (extremely) biased and partisan individuals on both sides of the political spectrum. I thought actual anecdotes and experiences from people who lived with such a program would be more enlightening than another review of the extreme libs vs the super neo-cons...the truth is possibly somewhere between those two opinions.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Hi SA: at any rate as far as the cost goes I wonder if that's correct? A dozen years ago our system cost us six percent of GDP. That was widely felt to be far too low by comparison with other Western countries and our last government pumped money in for a decade, to the pleasure of some and dismay of others. Healthcare now costs us around nine percent of GDP (source: the Economist magazine).

I'm sure you in particular are in a better position to know than me, but I have an idea your system costs you around 15-16 percent of GDP. Of course, you pay the bulk of that in fees and medical insurance charges as well as taxes for Medicaid and Medicare, whereas ours is nearly all in the form of taxes.

But it still all comes out of our pockets one way or another.

I have heard many reasons given for the disparity in cost. One of those is the huge economies of scale that a nationalised system can produce. As requested, an anecdote.

My dad has a pacemaker. Last time it was changed he was fitted with a Medtronic pacemaker that was supposedly the most advanced on the planet for his condition at that moment. We were told that the unit cost for fitting that item in the USA was around $35,000, whereas the cost here to the NHS was about £5000 / $8000 (free to us at point of service, but paid for from our taxes, of course). Mostly due to the bargaining muscle our health service brings to procurement (it is by some way the largest single healthcare provider in the world) and apparently to the fact that the supplier can't get away with passing on inflated pricing as they do to medical insurance companies.

Whether through taxation, insurance or direct fees we all have to pay for this stuff. But our system gets us identical things at a fraction of the cost.

***

Since we are trying to avoid party politics I won't address Tochai's request for Sarah Palin / NHS scare stories. But I won't be in the slightest offended if someone else wants to: she said some hilariously silly things...

Cheers - C

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The extreme charges of hospitals, doctors, and drug companies are ruining the US economy. They charge what they want, no matter how outrageous.

The problem in the U.S is the Tort laws are much different! Numerous times a day you see lawyer ads on television saying things like ( Have you taken this drug and had this side effect? Join our class action law suit! ) and drug companies end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars. The Government allows it even after the Food & Drug Administration made them spend hundreds of millions in testing to allow their sale! ONLY IN AMERICA Insurance companies are not allowed to sell across state lines, most don't no that each company has to be licensed for each state individually to do business at a political cost. 50 different sets of rules and regulations and most are politically motivated.

Don't even get into the tort laws effecting Doctors and Hospitals being sued! Tort reform would be the greatest way possible to lower heath care cost but the problem is that most politicians are lawyers and they refuse to do anything against the bread and butter of their brethren.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

In the early 1990's I was able to talk to a guy who had been an insurance agent since the early 1950's. He pointed out some things that were confirmed by my grandmother, who had worked in healthcare since the 1940's.

He said in the 50's an American doctor was a good, well-paid position, but they weren't "wealthy". They were better educated, they had a nicer home and car than the average person, but they weren't in the top 5% or wage earners. A "doctor's car" was a nice Buick or high-end Oldsmobile, not a Cadillac.
Healthcare was available to all, either through (1) a patient paying for their care, (2) a patient going to a charity hospital and paying what they could or (3) the very rare private health insurance plans that the wealthy bought.
A doctor would charge what the patient could afford; if they were poor, a simple procedure would be free or a nominal charge. If they were wealthier, he charged slightly more, in order to defray the cost of the poor individual's procedure.
But with the creation of Medicare/Medicaid, the government created a Fee Schedule, that placed a specific dollar amount on each procedure or surgery. Whereas previously the doctor would get little or nothing from attending to the poor, now he would get a specific fee that was comparable or greater than what he charged the wealthy. Since the fees went up for the poor, the middle class (which did not qualify for Medicaid) was now in a quandary; they couldn't pay out of their own pocket (too expensive), but they couldn't afford insurance.
The overall cost of healthcare rose, due to the government making the treatment of poor Medicaid/Medicare patients more attractive financially.
Added into this was the advent of malpractice lawsuits, which necessitated malpractice insurance, which caused everyone's healthcare costs to rise.
The FDA also broadened it's scope of approving medications to the point that the pharmaceutical companies had to shell out millions in research (and let's be honest, bribes) in order to get their products on the market in the US...more cost being shuffled back to the patient.
With the weakening of the American work force's ability to demand health coverage, more people who are too wealthy for Medicaid but far too poor for private health insurance have had to forego care for all but the most serious of medical problems.
Ultimately, the US healthcare system is horribly damaged, but it was due to the short-sightedness of politicians in the mid-1960's.

I think that's why many Americans are leery of the government taking over the healthcare industry, not just the inflammatory and ridiculous rhetoric of certain public figures.

I don't know what the NHC system in the UK is doing right, but from what you have told me, it sounds like it has had more benefit than harm than the public healthcare assistance programs in the US.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

Not one program the U.S. Government has created or taken over has cost what they projected, not even close! Once they are started they never go away either. Social Security is smoke and mirrors, there is no lock box of money their. They have used it where ever it was needed. Health and Human services already cost more then Defense by a large amount. Interest on the debt is the third largest expense the government has.
Instead of the Government taking over Health Care for all they should create incentives for companies to supply to employees at good rates open the U.S. market across state borders. Make medicaid a buy in program open to all based on salaries from 0 income to what ever! No freebees! Medical tied to other handout programs as requirement.
Tort reform!

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Hi again SA: I'm finding this so fascinating - I'd love to go on with it so long as people don't get shouty (as often happens on these sort of threads).

For absolute certain the NHS isn't getting everything right. The myths and realities of the government part of it are worth looking at. On the one hand, the picture painted by some of your politicians, particularly during your last Presidential campaign, of government somehow getting involved in clinical decisions is completely wrong. There are very careful structures to prevent that which have been evolved over decades and continue to develop.

For instance, decisions on whether or not to fund a given new, expensive and perhaps controversial cancer drug are taken by a body called the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, which very deliberately exists at a long arm's length from government and the health system's administration. The objective of the whole thing is that when my doctors and I make decisions about my healthcare it should be without any thought to cost, political initiatives or anything else; but on clinical grounds alone.

However (and it's a big however). Since the NHS is nationally provided out of taxation its overall funding is subject to governmental control, as are all sorts of organisational and strategic decisions. On the one hand this makes it democratically accountable and the focus of constant, sometimes useful, public debate. On the other hand it makes it subject to endless politically motivated tinkering from one side or the other and most of those who work within it regard that as a relentlessly bad thing. No sooner has some new reform been exhaustingly and expensively brought in than health ministers change their minds and want to go off in another direction. Most doctors and nurses think they could do with a whole lot less upheaval and messing from the top.

Of course, there are two sides to that. When should people be left to get on with their jobs, and when is the way they are doing their jobs in need of improvement?

Whatever the answer to that, one thing that might be striking is that as a nationally funded organisation to which we all contribute and which we all need at some point or other in our lives, here we feel a huge sense of ownership over our NHS which I have not encountered elsewhere. It belongs to us, we care about it intensely, we argue about it, complain about it bitterly when it works badly, feel tearfully grateful to it when it looks after us well - and most of us would go to the barricades to defend it.

Even in Scandinavia where they have a pretty similar setup to ours I don't remember ever coming across a health system over which people feel such protective, possessive affection. Politicians sometimes learn the hard way that they meddle with it at their peril. Curious, huh?

Cheers - C

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -fail.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... apped.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -care.html
Just a few of the Headlines of late on government run NHS the big plan to centralize the whole computer system, how hard could it have been, and how much did it actually cost, then when it all went belly up was anyone going to accept responsibility..N.O.P.E..blame everyone else, no communication between parties involved, yeah that's what we'll say everyone stick to that story..and the politicians what do they get, a seat in the House of Lords a couple of telly adds and a big FAT pension no doubt...anyone got a cure for grinding teeth

Yep, that one is eye-watering, to say the least.

An ex-IT bod of my wife's company has been working on that project for years. He can't begin to explain what the heck the problem is. And if he doesn't know...!

Cheers - C

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The problem here Ceri is that its not a National Insurance. It is the Government requiring all to have insurance be it theirs or private insurance if you have none the IRS is being brought in to Fine you a designated amount. Also the Government is placing ridiculous requirements on the private for profit companies such as not allowing them to deny insurance to someone with a known condition in which they no it will cost them hundred of thousands. This raises the cost to all they sell to to cover the expenses so they make a profit and stay in business. Eventually they will be no more and the single payer system which is the goal will take over. Already companies and employee cost has risen more in the last two years then ever. The present administration has signed 1400 waivers to very large companies that say they can not afford the cost to cover employees insurance because of the 1.25 million coverage requirement they go away in 2014 and the requirement stands. Employer insurance will become a dinosaur because it will be cheaper not to provide it and pay the Federal penalties of 2,000 dollars per employee as required by the Patient Protection Affordability and Care Act.
Companies that offer what is deemed Cadillac Plans will have to pay a penalty of %40 of a plans cost over 10,200 for and employee as a penalty and studies show that cost will increase because of changes. Then over half will be deemed Cadillac plans and the majority of the rest will be dropped by employers in favor of the 2,000 penalty.
People here in the U.S.have no idea what was signed into law.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

So you're saying that the government should take it all over, like the UK, so there won't be all these problems?

GTG, I'm not sure what everyone is saying either, but the other countries that have Gov H.C. are different than the USA. For the sake of participating I would chime in political threads in the past when I always knew it wasn't Republican or Democrat or Independent or name it. In the old USA it's called patronage (to get the job you either know someone to get sponsored or you know who collects the juice and pay for the job) patronage is Gov jobs and bureaucracy's loaded with people sympathetic to their sponsor's idea's machination's what have you. Which is the prob with the Pres H.C. fiasco. He is a union front and always has been not being critical but adding another half million office workers on top of health care just to create more redundant jobs and pensions and union organizers and the juice is all paid by taxpayers like us. Realistically, build a hospital that should cost 10 mil and ends up costing 14 mil because 4 mil is juice to the unions the politicians and lobbyists who pushed it through then the alderman wets his beak and the state rep has gotta get his people taken care of so now when the project starts the excavating equipment has to come from the right guy and every yard of concrete costs more cause they gotta get their juice and the pavers need to take care of their union and if there is a cafeteria inside every crate of milk, every shipment of baked goods, the meat suppliers, all different unions and then the painters, every load of bricks, every truck load of dry wall, steel, glass and on and on juice to every made guy, front man, and it all has to go their way. Now 10 years later that 14 mil is inflated to 25 or 26 mil and the job still isn't done and the G is bleeding the taxpayer for more and more because it's never enough. You know what I'm referring to these projects are all black holes and it's our fault for letting it get this way. The free health care right for every one is a sweet story but reality is a completely different animal that has absolutely nothing to do with it. Juice, patronage jobs, votes to keep it going their way. Vicious cycle, Amen.
wiki: "A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution"

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you can save the world with your guitar one love song at a time it's just better, more fun, easier with a fender solid body electric guitar or electric bass guitar.