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I would have died at the age of 19 if it weren't for the help of the UK's National Health Service. My parents and I didn't have to worry about hospital bills, f

by SandB0x 16y ago

I would have died at the age of 19 if it weren't for the help of the UK's National Health Service. My parents and I didn't have to worry about hospital bills, future insurance issues, being tied to a job, any of that crap. Just get some rest, get better, go out there and be productive again. The American system looks like a horrible joke from over here. I just can't understand any of it.

ahpeeyem 16y ago
I would have lost my sight and probably then died slowly and painfully from a tumour some time in my teens if not for Australia's national Medicare system that's been treating my condition since I was 12 years old. Instead I've only had to pay a nominal fee every time I need medication. Surgery, over a dozen MRI scans and visits to specialists over the years plus other tests and whatever else have all been paid for at no cost to me. It scares the crap out of me to think what would have happened to me if I was in the USA. To be able to see specialists or have expensive tests at times when I've been lucky to have $5 to my name is something I feel enormous gratitude for. I can't imagine the hardship having to pay for all this out of pocket would cause.
DanI-S 16y ago
I moved to the US from the UK over a year ago and I can't find words to describe the feeling of not having the NHS to rely on. This whole new world of potential disaster has opened up. It's something you've never had to think about before that is now at the forefront of your consciousness. You can be young, fit and healthy, but get hit by a car and your life is over. Once you're bankrupted by medical fees, you'll never have good credit again - and in the US, this is like the mark of the beast. It's no wonder that American streets are filled by the homeless and disabled. This is a great country, with wonderful people, but in some ways it's medieval.
- RK 16y ago
  Just out of curiosity, does your NHS insurance cover you while you're in the US?
  - aubergene 16y ago
    No, but if you can make it back to the UK you'd be covered, but you'd still have to pay for any sort of treatment you had abroad. You'd be broadly covered within Europe if you're from the UK.
  - tobych 16y ago
    Note that it's not "insurance", either. The NHS is just another tax-funded service.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  While a bankruptcy does stick around a long time (10 years iirc, 3 more than the Jubilee standard for which other credit entries endure), it's not true that "you'll never have good credit again". Many people in the US have gone bankrupt and they are still able to buy and finance homes, cars, and obtain other credit-dependent financial products. Generally it's 1-2 years after bankruptcy where no one will have anything to do with you, but after that, you can be considered a normal person again. Of course, that presupposes you don't need to pay out-of-pocket for major medical care more than once every 5-10 years.
carlygeehr 16y ago
I challenge anyone with a painful but non-life-threatening injury - say, a torn labrum, or a torn ACL - to go live in Canada or the UK and see what their treatment is like compared to here. Anyone?
- rdouble 16y ago
  This is the dark side of the Canadian system. Long waits for elective care. My dad is a doctor near the Canadian border and a good % of patients in his local system are Canadians who are coming down to pay out of pocket for elective surgeries they would have to wait for years to get in Canada. On the other hand, another hot business in my homeland was sending busloads of senior citizens up to Canada to buy cheaper generic drugs.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    It does sound like the Toronto or Vancouver areas may be the sweet spot for health coverage. Just a short jaunt to the US to partake in that system and permanent residence in Canada to make it plausible to live without working at BigCo.
- wvenable 16y ago
  My uncle has a torn ACL up at Whistler, BC and he paid for an MRI out of pocket ($800) at a private clinic and got surgery the next day and otherwise excellent treatment. However, had he not paid for the MRI, he would have waited quite a while to get one and then have the surgery.
- dools 16y ago
  I live in Australia. I broke my calcaneus into 12 pieces 3 years ago. I stayed in hospital for 3 weeks whilst the swelling went down and then had my heel operated on for 9 hours. I've been self-employed since 2003 and I've never paid a cent in health insurance, I just pay the Medicare levy like everyone else. I didn't pay any money at all for this stay or surgery, and also received free pain medication (endone, oxycontin etc.) upon release. The surgery was successful and although I still have some pain sometimes, I can walk, run, play sport and do anything else I like. If only the U.S healthcare system were my broken calcaneus :)
sudonim 16y ago
The irony of all these comments is the US government actually does pay for a lot of health care costs... "In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_s...
- pessimizer 16y ago
  It's a bit insane that both the US and individual citizens apart from each other pay more per capita for health care costs now than the government of a country with socialized health care.
jimbokun 16y ago
"I just can't understand any of it." Neither can those of us who live here. I mean, I can kind of understand the series of historical accidents of how we got here. What I can't understand are the politicians promising to fight tooth and nail to roll back the very minor reforms just enacted, and all of the people who enthusiastically just voted them into office last election, based on that platform.
- marshray 16y ago
  Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long and I doubt that anyone understands them except the lobbyists who wrote them.
  - gnaritas 16y ago
    > Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long So what? We live in a litigious society, laws are verbose because they have to be. Make it too vague and you just force the issues to be resolved in the courts making it even more confusing because the rules become written in case law.
    - marshray 16y ago
      The "what" is that our so-called "lawmakers" hadn't written it, much less read it, understood it, and debated it in any rational way before they voted on it. Call me an idealist, but I think that's bad. Like a tax code, usually these kinds of things end up working out mostly to the benefit of the larger parties who pay the most lawyers and professional staff to find and execute on the loopholes.
      - krschultz 16y ago
        I don't know, it took about a year for them to pass it. I understand it fairly well because I've read a lot of perspectives on it from both sides. The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Anything trying to change this convoluted system is going to be complicated. I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it and that is less than 10%. But they detail down to the most minute thing what you are allowed to do and not allowed to do. The big picture stuff fits on the first 10 pages, and then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). So I don't think "# of pages" should ever be a metric for judging a law.
uygtfrgtyjuhk 16y ago
In the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, or Canada - or pretty much any other capitalist country - you can leave your job for a better paying one or to start your own wealth creating business. This allows the country to maximize the value of your labor. In the US you can't leave your job to start your own business because your children might get sick and die. Even leaving for another employer is tricky because there is often a 6-12month gap before the new health coverage kicks in and anything you had treated in the past (like a broken leg in a childhood cycling accident) becomes a pre-existing condition and the new place denies you coverage. This very effectively reduces wage costs since the whole 'importing people from africa' thing was banned.
- fijall 16y ago
  Importing people from anywhere else is on it's way out in the US as well. (even willingly)
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  This is important! It highlights the difference between dejure protection of freedoms, and defacto protection. As a relatively well-paid (when I wasn't working for myself) Canadian, it just never occurred to me that I might need to stick with a job just for the benefits. I had the freedom to move.
  - uygtfrgtyjuhk 16y ago
    Thus allowing you to maximize your income, skill utilization and benefit to society - hence a commie plot (apparently)
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  A stipulation of most group insurance plans is that the insurer will not deny coverage to any person in the group. Most people switching jobs will not have to worry about insurability if they are switching to an established company with an extant group plan. Working for such an employer is in fact one of the only ways many people can get health insurance. A six or twelve month wait is also unusual on switching jobs. Generally it will take ~60 days from hire for the new insurance to kick in, but rarely more than 90.
protomyth 16y ago
Some segments do have government provided health insurance in the US, but they are horror stories aplenty (I have some personal ones that only turned out well by divine providence or an amazing series of coincidences depending on your view on such things). The problem is the government is broke and the health care bill was so bad that many supporters already have exemptions (including a few unions that backed the bill). Worse it really didn't address the big problem of why health care costs so much. It also had unwarranted optimism on cost savings. At some point, I hope that the government will address: tort reform, drug trial costs, cost of medical training, bulk drug purchasing, "catastrophic" government backed insurance, and better medical savings accounts. I really expect more talking heads yelling at each other first.

by SandB0x 16y ago

ahpeeyem 16y ago

I would have lost my sight and probably then died slowly and painfully from a tumour some time in my teens if not for Australia's national Medicare system that's been treating my condition since I was 12 years old. Instead I've only had to pay a nominal fee every time I need medication. Surgery, over a dozen MRI scans and visits to specialists over the years plus other tests and whatever else have all been paid for at no cost to me. It scares the crap out of me to think what would have happened to me if I was in the USA. To be able to see specialists or have expensive tests at times when I've been lucky to have $5 to my name is something I feel enormous gratitude for. I can't imagine the hardship having to pay for all this out of pocket would cause.

DanI-S 16y ago

I moved to the US from the UK over a year ago and I can't find words to describe the feeling of not having the NHS to rely on. This whole new world of potential disaster has opened up. It's something you've never had to think about before that is now at the forefront of your consciousness. You can be young, fit and healthy, but get hit by a car and your life is over. Once you're bankrupted by medical fees, you'll never have good credit again - and in the US, this is like the mark of the beast. It's no wonder that American streets are filled by the homeless and disabled. This is a great country, with wonderful people, but in some ways it's medieval.

RK 16y ago
Just out of curiosity, does your NHS insurance cover you while you're in the US?
- aubergene 16y ago
  No, but if you can make it back to the UK you'd be covered, but you'd still have to pay for any sort of treatment you had abroad. You'd be broadly covered within Europe if you're from the UK.
- tobych 16y ago
  Note that it's not "insurance", either. The NHS is just another tax-funded service.
cookiecaper 16y ago
While a bankruptcy does stick around a long time (10 years iirc, 3 more than the Jubilee standard for which other credit entries endure), it's not true that "you'll never have good credit again". Many people in the US have gone bankrupt and they are still able to buy and finance homes, cars, and obtain other credit-dependent financial products. Generally it's 1-2 years after bankruptcy where no one will have anything to do with you, but after that, you can be considered a normal person again. Of course, that presupposes you don't need to pay out-of-pocket for major medical care more than once every 5-10 years.

carlygeehr 16y ago

I challenge anyone with a painful but non-life-threatening injury - say, a torn labrum, or a torn ACL - to go live in Canada or the UK and see what their treatment is like compared to here. Anyone?

rdouble 16y ago
This is the dark side of the Canadian system. Long waits for elective care. My dad is a doctor near the Canadian border and a good % of patients in his local system are Canadians who are coming down to pay out of pocket for elective surgeries they would have to wait for years to get in Canada. On the other hand, another hot business in my homeland was sending busloads of senior citizens up to Canada to buy cheaper generic drugs.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  It does sound like the Toronto or Vancouver areas may be the sweet spot for health coverage. Just a short jaunt to the US to partake in that system and permanent residence in Canada to make it plausible to live without working at BigCo.
wvenable 16y ago
My uncle has a torn ACL up at Whistler, BC and he paid for an MRI out of pocket ($800) at a private clinic and got surgery the next day and otherwise excellent treatment. However, had he not paid for the MRI, he would have waited quite a while to get one and then have the surgery.
dools 16y ago
I live in Australia. I broke my calcaneus into 12 pieces 3 years ago. I stayed in hospital for 3 weeks whilst the swelling went down and then had my heel operated on for 9 hours. I've been self-employed since 2003 and I've never paid a cent in health insurance, I just pay the Medicare levy like everyone else. I didn't pay any money at all for this stay or surgery, and also received free pain medication (endone, oxycontin etc.) upon release. The surgery was successful and although I still have some pain sometimes, I can walk, run, play sport and do anything else I like. If only the U.S healthcare system were my broken calcaneus :)

sudonim 16y ago

The irony of all these comments is the US government actually does pay for a lot of health care costs... "In 2006, 70% of health care spending in Canada was financed by government, versus 46% in the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_systems_in_Canada_and_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_the_health_care_s...

pessimizer 16y ago
It's a bit insane that both the US and individual citizens apart from each other pay more per capita for health care costs now than the government of a country with socialized health care.

jimbokun 16y ago

"I just can't understand any of it." Neither can those of us who live here. I mean, I can kind of understand the series of historical accidents of how we got here. What I can't understand are the politicians promising to fight tooth and nail to roll back the very minor reforms just enacted, and all of the people who enthusiastically just voted them into office last election, based on that platform.

marshray 16y ago
Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long and I doubt that anyone understands them except the lobbyists who wrote them.
- gnaritas 16y ago
  > Those "minor reforms" were 10,000 pages long So what? We live in a litigious society, laws are verbose because they have to be. Make it too vague and you just force the issues to be resolved in the courts making it even more confusing because the rules become written in case law.
  - marshray 16y ago
    The "what" is that our so-called "lawmakers" hadn't written it, much less read it, understood it, and debated it in any rational way before they voted on it. Call me an idealist, but I think that's bad. Like a tax code, usually these kinds of things end up working out mostly to the benefit of the larger parties who pay the most lawyers and professional staff to find and execute on the loopholes.
    - krschultz 16y ago
      I don't know, it took about a year for them to pass it. I understand it fairly well because I've read a lot of perspectives on it from both sides. The "IT'S SO DAMN LONG NOBODY CAN UNDERSTAND IT AND THEY SHOVED IT DOWN OUR THROATS SO FAST" is just a tactic to try and sway people who haven't been following in detail to be against it. Anything trying to change this convoluted system is going to be complicated. I do engineering for government contracts. The spec for the system I work on covers thousands of pages. I've read about 6" thick worth of it and that is less than 10%. But they detail down to the most minute thing what you are allowed to do and not allowed to do. The big picture stuff fits on the first 10 pages, and then they drill down into exactly what kind of thread you can have on a fastener and exactly how you are allowed to stress a weld for the next 1,000 pages. But it stems from previous experiences and errors, and it leads to a better product (though a more expensive one). So I don't think "# of pages" should ever be a metric for judging a law.

uygtfrgtyjuhk 16y ago

In the UK, or anywhere else in Europe, or Canada - or pretty much any other capitalist country - you can leave your job for a better paying one or to start your own wealth creating business. This allows the country to maximize the value of your labor. In the US you can't leave your job to start your own business because your children might get sick and die. Even leaving for another employer is tricky because there is often a 6-12month gap before the new health coverage kicks in and anything you had treated in the past (like a broken leg in a childhood cycling accident) becomes a pre-existing condition and the new place denies you coverage. This very effectively reduces wage costs since the whole 'importing people from africa' thing was banned.

fijall 16y ago
Importing people from anywhere else is on it's way out in the US as well. (even willingly)
JabavuAdams 16y ago
This is important! It highlights the difference between dejure protection of freedoms, and defacto protection. As a relatively well-paid (when I wasn't working for myself) Canadian, it just never occurred to me that I might need to stick with a job just for the benefits. I had the freedom to move.
- uygtfrgtyjuhk 16y ago
  Thus allowing you to maximize your income, skill utilization and benefit to society - hence a commie plot (apparently)
cookiecaper 16y ago
A stipulation of most group insurance plans is that the insurer will not deny coverage to any person in the group. Most people switching jobs will not have to worry about insurability if they are switching to an established company with an extant group plan. Working for such an employer is in fact one of the only ways many people can get health insurance. A six or twelve month wait is also unusual on switching jobs. Generally it will take ~60 days from hire for the new insurance to kick in, but rarely more than 90.

protomyth 16y ago

Some segments do have government provided health insurance in the US, but they are horror stories aplenty (I have some personal ones that only turned out well by divine providence or an amazing series of coincidences depending on your view on such things). The problem is the government is broke and the health care bill was so bad that many supporters already have exemptions (including a few unions that backed the bill). Worse it really didn't address the big problem of why health care costs so much. It also had unwarranted optimism on cost savings. At some point, I hope that the government will address: tort reform, drug trial costs, cost of medical training, bulk drug purchasing, "catastrophic" government backed insurance, and better medical savings accounts. I really expect more talking heads yelling at each other first.