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Healthcare Public or Private?

Posted 15 months ago|10 comments|738 views
The Pulic Centre Money Tree
Written by
Paper Tiger
England
In the UK we have two types of healthcare. Public and private, I have used them both but I prefer the public. Why, because it's free? Free, all my working life I have had large amounts of money taken out of my pay even before I have seen it. I cannot stop it, it is not income tax, it's incase I need medical treatment. The money that is stopped out of my pay each month is more than the average Americans pay for medical insurance. If I want to go private I still get a great big chunk taken out of my pay, then I have to pay again for private treatment. So if I decide I want, or need to speed up the healing process I have to pay the highest price in the universe. It's like owning your own house then having to pay rent on top. Public health in the UK is a money tree, you may not have ever had treatment but as sure as night is night you are paying for the privalege to be healthy all your life.

Just to confuse the issue, if the Public service is too busy to treat you for whatever reason the public sector pay the private sector to treat you, so the money we pay towards the public sector, which we have no choice but to pay, is given to the private sector by the public sector. Healthcare cannot lose.

Now you Americans have it very easy. You take out an insurance, which is nowhere near as much as we pay for our free service, and you get treated like a god when you are ill. In the UK if you are ill people look at you as if you are a freeloader.
This was supposed to be a rant but the rant would not let me upload my picture. The rave, happily uploaded my picture so I am raving under false pretences. Mr Rant and Mr Rave get you uploading picture act together.
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COMMENTS
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
15 months ago: Mr. Tiger

The UK's health care system has been held up as a shining example for us to emulate. It cannot possibly be as you describe, a corrupt, inept, and inefficient behemoth. The UK has only a fraction of the population of the US spread over an even smaller fraction of land mass.

So I guess you are saying we could expect the same qualities in our new health care system, but to a degree of several orders higher?

Too bad this will only be seen by 37 people.
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: Hello Mr. Box, how the devil are you?
When the hospital service went public in the 1940's they started a building program. It taken the UK 50+ years to build a system that does not work. That's only for 60 million people. Plus the millions that come from all over the globe to sample our generosity. An example my neighbour is 72 years old he has fluid on the lung and a suspected heart attack. He went to his doctor four times, to be given antibiotics. He phoned an ambulance many times in one week, they took him in then sent him home the same day. It got so bad we had to get his family involved. After many phone calls and arguements over the phone they decided to examine him again. He has been in hospital for 1 month now, with a "very weak heart" that was the diagnosis and pluracy with pnemonia(sorry about the spelling). So we visit him a few times a week and we have no idea how long he will be in hospital as he is so ill.
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
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Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
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Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
15 months ago: You should wait until the super bowl spammers get done, and re-post this. We are trying desperately to repeal the crap legislation passed last year. We could use testimonies like this one.
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
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Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: Hi Box,

What's a super bowl? Is it a large jug or a vase?
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: Hello Mr Box, how the devil are you?

The UK care system does not provide the best practice for everybody. Our health system is swamped by people from all over the globe taking a holiday here and having very expensive surgery/treatment in our free system. Although it is free, I will repeat it, people working in the UK pay handsomely for this service. But it has very many pitfalls. As people comfrom all over the world to get trated for free, they are treated free, all they pay is for carparking, our hospitals are full to bursting. My 72 year old nieghbour went to his doctor four times complaining about chest pains and breathing difficulties. He was given antibiotics. He went to the Milton Keynes accident and emergency section only to be sent home time and time again. His family and friends began to make some serious calls to the relevent people. He has now been addmitted to hospital and has been there for four weeks. He has heart problem, pnumonia, pluracy and a host of secondry ailments. We go to see him 2/3 times a week. I asked the doctor how long he would be in for and was told, it would be a long time as he is too sick to go home. Work that one out!
15 months ago: The problem with American healthcare insurance is how to get people to use it properly. For example Emergency Rooms are required to treat patients regardless of their ability to pay, which is all fine and well if you are dying but most emergency room cases are of the non urgent variety which could have been treated at a less expensive clinics or even urgent care facility. This happens because some people don't have insurance and use the ER's as a clinic. But it also happens because some people don't get regular care, they wait till things have gotten really bad before they go get care.

Bottom line is that the price of healthcare goes up. In a capitalist society consumer demand drives the price so realistically speaking the unhealthier over all we are the more health insurance will cost. With the expansion of government sponsored healthcare what we get is an unnaturally low healthcare cost, much like corn is subsidized here in the US forcing all these corn byproducts to flood every aspect of American society with products that are unhealthy thereby making people more ill thus requiring more healthcare, thus driving up the cost of healthcare insurance. So directly or indirectly the government is either keeping healthcare costs artificially high or artificially low. What was my point again?
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: Hi Dwayne.
Getting to use it properly is by creating a process that involves everyone in the process. Private insurance should be manditory, money taken a source for you income. Before you actually gat the income. People who cannot afford healthcare for whatever reason should be meams tested and thr result of that means test will stipulate how much, if anything, that person has to pay. They could be issued with a card so the data matches up with whats on file.

Because of your price increases those who have been means tested would pay a proportion of the increase or nothing at all. For the USA to bring in a free system would be very difficult, but if there is means tested treatment it should not produce an unnaturall low healthcare cost.

Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: As the UK healthcare system has started to open its doors to the private domain. Alot of these health companies are popping up all over the place. They have to poach staff from the NHS because it takes so long to train medics. So for the past, god knows how many years, we have been paying for these people to be trained, the new private sector comes along and employs fully trained staff to cure us, make us pay a premium rate, two rates, one from your pay, the other from your own pocket, for staff you have paid for their training in the first place. Again its like owning your house and someboby making you pay to live there.
15 months ago: Pretty much works the same here, except we don't get "taxed" for our healthcare, yet. If you want better treatment than your insurance will pay for, you pay for it out of pocket, just like Brits do.

Pros and cons abound for both methods. Whatever we end up with, one thing has to be done right and that is the identification process coupled with the approval process. Each step needs to be done correctly and quickly. There is no reason it should take weeks or months to get approval for treatment of a life threatening condition and to treat someone not vested in the program is just wasteful of the funds (illegal aliens have not paid into the system and don't if they don't pay taxes).

I don't know the dollar amount you Brits pay, but the last time I was employed where they provide health insurance the company put up nearly $1000 per employee and the employee paid $125 to $300 depending on family size. So if you are paying over $1125 a month pretax, then you are paying more than we, otherwise....... I know there are private policies for people that aren't employed by a company or by one that doesn't provide insurance, and some are less expensiive than the one I quoted, they also come with very high deductables and copays (deductables in the $1.5K range and copays of $25 per visit).

My situation is very different from most citizens. Military retiree who was disabled after retirement. I'm covered.
Paper Tiger
Paper Tiger
England
15 months ago: Hi Six, how you doing?
Yes there are a lot of pro's and con's. But to have a two tier system can be misused. Most people have a little knowlage of medicine. When you see a consultant, they act like they are god, if you are ill you will believe anything this consultant tells you. So the comsultant works in the public sector but owns a private practice. When the consultant tells you you have, say, cancer, the consultant will offer you two choices. 1. Go public and the wait may be fatal.
2. I can treat you privately we will start the treatment tommorrow. It happens all the time.

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