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> Are there any measures of how America does compared to Europe if you only count Americans that have good health insurance? Anecdotally, I'd say they do crap.

by grecy 8y ago

> Are there any measures of how America does compared to Europe if you only count Americans that have good health insurance? Anecdotally, I'd say they do crap. Friends outside LA are upper-middle class. Extremely good health insurance for the last 20+ years. Had a baby, emergency C-section. Less than 12 hours later they were told they must move hospital or else pay the $60,000 per day out of pocket because their insurance wouldn't cover it anymore. They had to drive themselves, in their own car, less than 12 hours after an emergency C-Section, with the infant. Of of this after paying through the nose for 20+ years for excellent health insurance. As an Australia/Canadian this is barbaric, and utterly unacceptable.

kodablah 8y ago
I think the commenter was asking about quality regardless of cost, especially for the upper tier.
- grecy 8y ago
  Yes, and I was saying the quality is very low.
- tialaramex 8y ago
  It's going to be very hard to usefully measure, because it'll vary hugely by personal experience, where you are, what services you needed, etcetera. I can't imagine how any experiences I have with the NHS could be better privately, I have enough money that I could afford a private system if I had any idea why or how that could be better, so I'd be genuinely torn (I support the existence of the NHS and one way to kill something like the NHS is to encourage everybody who can afford to go privately to leave the system) but it never comes up at all. Not everything is perfect, but the less-than-perfect things don't feel like private healthcare could fix them e.g. At home I live near a hospital, because I live in a city, but where I grew up there isn't a nearby hospital. Private doesn't fix that, under the US system I might be even further from an "in network" option, and even in a sane system the private hospitals would be in similar places to those for a universal system, it doesn't help. I had cancer years back. Nothing about this seemed awful except the "having cancer" part which I'm sure private healthcare doesn't get rid of. Curing cancer is urgent so there was no waiting for treatment, the staff were competent, my oncology consultants were the exact sort of "no nonsense" people I'd have picked if I had a free choice. The hospital was nice. A+++ would recommend (except cancer, don't get cancer) Once upon a time I moved to a new city and friends were all like "Oh my god, get a private dentist, ugh, it's just impossible to get an NHS dentist". And being contrary I was like "Huh, I wonder how impossible it is?" and the answer was "You phone this number and they assign you one" and I'm still with the same dental practice twenty years later. In fact my specific dentist left last year and I was like "Oh, maybe he went private and I could follow?" but nope, he retired, I feel old. His replacement is young enough to be my daughter. But she's already nagging me about stuff just like he did, so that's fine. I had a scary moment in a distant city last year, I had found a lump and was experiencing peripheral neuropathy. I went to an Urgent Care clinic and rather than examine me they booked me into my own GP for the next day and I went home early. In hindsight they should have examined me, because my GP was like "The clinic nurse could have told you this is not what you were worried it might be". But, would private healthcare have done the examination? That comes down to personal judgement by a clinic nurse, and money wouldn't change that.

by grecy 8y ago

kodablah 8y ago

I think the commenter was asking about quality regardless of cost, especially for the upper tier.

grecy 8y ago
Yes, and I was saying the quality is very low.
tialaramex 8y ago
It's going to be very hard to usefully measure, because it'll vary hugely by personal experience, where you are, what services you needed, etcetera. I can't imagine how any experiences I have with the NHS could be better privately, I have enough money that I could afford a private system if I had any idea why or how that could be better, so I'd be genuinely torn (I support the existence of the NHS and one way to kill something like the NHS is to encourage everybody who can afford to go privately to leave the system) but it never comes up at all. Not everything is perfect, but the less-than-perfect things don't feel like private healthcare could fix them e.g. At home I live near a hospital, because I live in a city, but where I grew up there isn't a nearby hospital. Private doesn't fix that, under the US system I might be even further from an "in network" option, and even in a sane system the private hospitals would be in similar places to those for a universal system, it doesn't help. I had cancer years back. Nothing about this seemed awful except the "having cancer" part which I'm sure private healthcare doesn't get rid of. Curing cancer is urgent so there was no waiting for treatment, the staff were competent, my oncology consultants were the exact sort of "no nonsense" people I'd have picked if I had a free choice. The hospital was nice. A+++ would recommend (except cancer, don't get cancer) Once upon a time I moved to a new city and friends were all like "Oh my god, get a private dentist, ugh, it's just impossible to get an NHS dentist". And being contrary I was like "Huh, I wonder how impossible it is?" and the answer was "You phone this number and they assign you one" and I'm still with the same dental practice twenty years later. In fact my specific dentist left last year and I was like "Oh, maybe he went private and I could follow?" but nope, he retired, I feel old. His replacement is young enough to be my daughter. But she's already nagging me about stuff just like he did, so that's fine. I had a scary moment in a distant city last year, I had found a lump and was experiencing peripheral neuropathy. I went to an Urgent Care clinic and rather than examine me they booked me into my own GP for the next day and I went home early. In hindsight they should have examined me, because my GP was like "The clinic nurse could have told you this is not what you were worried it might be". But, would private healthcare have done the examination? That comes down to personal judgement by a clinic nurse, and money wouldn't change that.