4 ms·

Just my story, so you can see how well it CAN work: I live in Australia. Last year I was diagnosed with aggressive nodular melanoma. In a matter of weeks/month

Just my story, so you can see how well it CAN work: I live in Australia. Last year I was diagnosed with aggressive nodular melanoma. In a matter of weeks/months it spread to all the lymph nodes in my left leg. I've been through a solid year of treatment so far with half a dozen CT and MRI scans, 5 major surgeries, 3 minor (day) surgeries, chemo, constant physiotherapy and rehab, more medication than i could list, and dozens of specialists. I'm out of pocket by about $1000 total (mostly got the gap fee for one of my specialists). If I was in the US or elsewhere, I've been told it would be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Money I never could have paid. We have optional private health cover here, but I didn't have it. All my stuff is done under the Medicare system which we pay for with our taxes. I owe them my life. Literally.

ljf 15y ago
Thanks for sharing, similar story: Here in the UK a program was started sending out postal tests for bowel cancer to men and women of an at risk age. One arrived for my father, he wasn't going to bother, he felt fine, and to do the test you had to paste a bit of poo into the kit and post it back, which grossed him out a bit. My mother persueded him to do it, and 3 weeks later he was called up by the hospital, as they'd detected blood. 2 weeks later he was having internal test and a month after that had a tumour and a couple of feel of colon removed. It's now 3 years later and thankfully the tumours have not returned, though he has 6 monthly check-ups until the 5 year mark, then down to yearly. All this was free (well paid for by tax). By pre-emptively catching the cancer early the NHS was able to both save a mans life, and also save a huge amount of money that could have been spent on late stage care. I am forever indebted to the NHS and universal health care. As a self employed artist my father wouldn't have been able to afford private care, and I hate to imagine the state of care he would have received in another country, where universal free healthcare did not exist or was underfunded. The money we pay here in tax is far less than that paid in other countries in insurance, and covers everyone equally.
masklinn 15y ago
> If I was in the US or elsewhere Just the US, if you restrict yourself to "advanced economies".

ljf 15y ago

Thanks for sharing, similar story: Here in the UK a program was started sending out postal tests for bowel cancer to men and women of an at risk age. One arrived for my father, he wasn't going to bother, he felt fine, and to do the test you had to paste a bit of poo into the kit and post it back, which grossed him out a bit. My mother persueded him to do it, and 3 weeks later he was called up by the hospital, as they'd detected blood. 2 weeks later he was having internal test and a month after that had a tumour and a couple of feel of colon removed. It's now 3 years later and thankfully the tumours have not returned, though he has 6 monthly check-ups until the 5 year mark, then down to yearly. All this was free (well paid for by tax). By pre-emptively catching the cancer early the NHS was able to both save a mans life, and also save a huge amount of money that could have been spent on late stage care. I am forever indebted to the NHS and universal health care. As a self employed artist my father wouldn't have been able to afford private care, and I hate to imagine the state of care he would have received in another country, where universal free healthcare did not exist or was underfunded. The money we pay here in tax is far less than that paid in other countries in insurance, and covers everyone equally.

masklinn 15y ago

> If I was in the US or elsewhere Just the US, if you restrict yourself to "advanced economies".