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It only looks like clickbait because you're used to a system that costs $$$ to get medical care. In the UK when my mother got told she was terminal and had a c
by RansomStark 4y ago
It only looks like clickbait because you're used to a system that costs $$$ to get medical care.
In the UK when my mother got told she was terminal and had a couple of months left, she chose to spend them at home. In the end she left hospital in mid-December and died the following May. 5 months at home in a specialist bed, provided by the hospital, all of the equipment required to keep a dying person comfortable again provided by the hospital. Nurses and doctors there every day.
Because of her illness, the government paid her rent, it paid my father a carers allowance, so he was able take time off work.
Total cost: £0.
5 months of excellent at home care for £0.
You shouldn't be dismissing the article as clickbait, it shouldn't cost $145k to die, there shouldn't need to be a discussion here.
You should be so very angry that a country that takes in $3tn a year in federal taxes won't support a working healthcare system
- redeeman 4y ago> Total cost: £0. > 5 months of excellent at home care for £0. a lifetime of having way more than HALF your income stolen from you..... 0? okay..
- IOT_Apprentice 4y agoYou can lose all your savings and your home in the US as a result of just Healthcare expenses alone. Do you think that is a good idea? None of the other industrialized nations of the world do. Hmmm.
- redeeman 4y agoand in the UK you can die while waiting for the ambulance.. in canada they will recommend you go kill yourself... every system has problems, but there is a thing in common with all the systems.. they all have the hands of government deeply involved
- gabereiser 4y agoRidiculous. https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates https://www.gov.uk/income-tax-rates It's clearly closer to "just under HALF your income..."
- redeeman 4y agookay... so now lets say i pay 30% in taxes on my income, great.. now I go into a store, and I buy some things.. woop, how much sales tax? oh shit, now we're at 50%. how many tolls and various other insane things have to be paid to the government?
- onion2k 4y agoEven if you include VAT the chances are that you spend quite a small amount of your money on VAT-rated goods. There's only so much stuff you can buy. Most of your earnings are probably going on a mortgage or being invested, neither or which have VAT on them.
- gabereiser 4y agoThis is why initiatives to reform our healthcare system fail. People disillusioned with what it entails. They see taxes. They see money going to waste or worse, to people who don't deserve their support. Like the elderly. Or the sick. I'm not sick, why should I have to pay for you? American Greed Inc.
- redeeman 4y agowouldnt it then be much better to separate it out, so likeminded people can pay for what they want? you say a large amount of people are happy to pay? great! make a healthcare system like you want. Guess what? I also wish to purchase healthcare services, I just dont want to be forced to purchase the crap the local regime forces upon me. and what does it matter to you if I can opt out of paying? one less person to serve? great? everyone is happy.
- redeeman 4y ago
- Beltiras 4y agoSome of us see it as paying for services, not that the government are thieves. And we are pretty happy to pay, given the hellscape examples shown in the good old US of A.
- redeeman 4y agoI am not highlighting the US as a shining example of anything. but if you are happy to pay, make it optional? it seems to me that you are happy to force others to pay? biggest gang wins? seems to me that "some of us" will be perfectly happy buying the services, and some other of us will be perfectly happy NOT buying the services
- Beltiras 4y agoThen choose to live where the taxes are low and services are shit. Don't take the piss out of our choices. They do not affect you.
- redeeman 4y agoreplying to sibling-response: and where would I go? it seems that universally around the world there are a large amount of people that feel that they are entitled to rob their fellow citizens, at ultimately what is gunpoint threat of being put in jail. if I just go mind my own business, and conduct business with other likeminded people, and the regime finds out, they will send their brownshirts with guns to drag me away, simply for refusing to give them half
- j0hnyl 4y agoWe get close to half our income stole in the US if we make enough... and it doesn't take that much.
- stevehawk 4y agoIn America we have half our income "stolen" from us as well. We just pretend it's not.
- wbeckler 4y agoI've lived in the UK and the US. The taxes are about the same.
- arcticbull 4y agoTop marginal income tax rate in California is like 55% and includes zero medical care. That’s extra.
- redeeman 4y agoand then sales tax, and then tolls on imported shit, and then the accumulated increases in prices due to others taxes.. at the end of the day, you pay WAY above half your life in taxes. in Europe its of course even more fucked up, where taxes are above 95% of some goods you buy
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- seszett 4y agoWhat goods are you thinking about? I think even tobacco (generally the most taxed product) is under that.
- redeeman 4y agogasoline for example
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- arcticbull 4y agoI'm all for more expensive gas. Oil price doesn't properly factor in externalities and it needs to be much more expensive to incentivize transition away.
- redeeman 4y agothen how about doing the sensible thing and mandating that ALL the money the externalities cost be collected, and spent on undoing it? think burning gasoline causes X shit to happen? fine, go pay for that instead of salary to some member of parliament. but no, thats not what happens, all these "green" taxes go straight to the coffins that pays for all the retarded shit the regime wants
- dcormier 4y agoDo you think the US healthcare system is better than the UKs?
- redeeman 4y agoim some ways, I also think the UKs is better in some.. but I mostly think both of them are total shit, and I think a very very large part to blame for that is government
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- onion2k 4y agoIt's not possible to pay more than 50% in earnings related taxes (income tax and national insurance) in the UK because the national insurance is capped at £23k and the highest tax band is 45% (on earnings over £150k). Even if you earn £1m/year you still take home more than £500k.
- Duplo 4y agoAccording to helpful tool on ListenToTaxMan.com tax is 46% if earning £2million/year. https://listentotaxman.com/?year=2022&taxregion=uk&age=0&time=1&ingr=2000000 https://listentotaxman.com/?year=2022&taxregion=uk&age=0&tim...
- redeeman 4y agoyeah and when you spend it, you are taken for 20% sales tax, not to mention that the prices in general are far higher, because the people who made it need to pay taxes too
- kaveh_h 4y agoYou could also end up with some serious illness when you're young and in need of special care without which you don't have any opportunity to build that income you're talking about. Each additional person being able to contribute means another person has contributed to your economic wellbeing and a egalitarian society where people's opportunity is not lost do to bad luck. I would argue taxation is only theft if the money is spend on extremely bad, costly and possibly corrupt policy decisions like US wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan or even the war on drugs. Probably a lot of these policy decisions are influenced by lobbying from various industries and special interest groups. Follow the money.
- powera 4y agoIt doesn't cost $145k to die, it costs $145k to have 24-7 in-house medical support for a year. And somebody has to pay the medical support staff. The sense that "this is necessary so it should be free" is not unique to the parent comment, but it is incorrect.
- eh9 4y agoThat “somebody” is the government in most developed places in the world. Except the United States which ties your healthcare to capitalism.
- pjlegato 4y ago"The government" has no money of its own. Everything "the government" does is paid for by private citizens in the form of taxes, without exception. These taxes are harvested from capitalist economic activity.
- amanaplanacanal 4y agoI’m pretty sure everybody understands that.
- vlovich123 4y agoUmmm… doesn’t the government literally print money? Sure you can’t just print infinite money as it devalues the currency, but I don’t think stating whether or not the government has money is a helpful framing. The government has an entirely different relationship to money. I could be wrong but taxes are more a way to keep value of the currency by creating some artificial scarcity. Sure, the government tries to keep a balance between taxation and expenditure to avoid devaluing the currency too much, but that’s not the same thing. In fact, governments regularly run deficits (spending money they don’t have) without collapsing. The only real risk is of a major currency devaluation because you managed the inflation incorrectly. Consider the “out” for the US debt ceiling being bandied about is minting a trillion dollar coin.
- em500 4y ago
- oneoff786 4y agoI can be simultaneously angry that our medical system sucks and still believe that setting up a mini hospital in dying elderly people’s homes is a colossal misuse of government funds.
- fzeroracer 4y agoIs it? Presumably said person was a tax paying citizen that had paid more than their share throughout their life, the same goes for the children. How would it be a colossal misuse of government funds for people to get what they paid for?
- oneoff786 4y agoPeople “get their share” by living in a society that is held together by those taxes imo. There are surely many edge cases, but in countries like Canada/US/UK I think people generally get their due. Regardless, setting up a mini hospital in someone’s home is just dumb. There is no reason for such a high level of service. You want to die at home? Sure. I’m down for MAID at home. You want a suite of private doctors and equipment at home? Pay for it. If you want public service you should go to public service facilities.
- khmii 4y agoExactly. People are quite ridiculous when it comes to healthcare. I just had an elderly family member that would have died if not for the hospital saving their life but they can't stop complaining about the $4k they have to pay. One would have to be painfully ignorant of basic economics to not see that setting up a mini hospital in a person's home is not going to be cheap. It is practically like complaining about the cost of taking a private vs commercial jet.
- encoderer 4y agomany places in the US have a similar option called at home hospice care. Also free. Provides equipment and multiple home visits a week.
- lemiant 4y agoI feel like if you look at the amount of equipment and staff here it obviously costs a huge amount to deliver this care. Regardless of who pays the $100k+ cost remains.
- vlovich123 4y agoGenerally socialized healthcare is also cheaper because you have a single payer negotiating. You also don’t have all the middlemen that are spending time figuring out whether or not your insurance covers X Y or Z. So while it costs $140k out of pocket in addition to all the same background costs, in a socialized system it costs a heck of a lot less in addition to being free out of pocket. The trade off is that healthcare can be difficult to obtain as you have to navigate a very complicated system and there’s limited resources because it’s more accessible - if you’re upper middle class you can have similar struggles to find care as those who are poorer. The rich are oblivious to this because they can just pay for private care or travel to where private care exists.
- knubie 4y agoEvery system costs $$$ to get medical care.
- Baader-Meinhof 4y agoSure, the NHS does provide excellent care, but it's not free. The fact that the British won't come to terms with this is causing its collapse: "In December, as many as 500 patients per week were dying in Britain because of E.R. waits, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, a figure rivaling (and perhaps surpassing) the death toll from Covid-19. On average, English ambulances were taking an hour and a half to respond to stroke and heart-attack calls, compared with a target time of 18 minutes; nationwide, 10 times as many patients spent more than four hours waiting in emergency rooms as did in 2011. The waiting list for scheduled treatments recently passed seven million — more than 10 percent of the country — prompting nurses to strike. The National Health Service has been in crisis for years, but over the holidays, as wait times spiked, the crisis moved to the very center of a narrative of national decline." https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/uk-economic-decline-nhs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/uk-economic-decli...
- IOT_Apprentice 4y agoIsn't that because the Tory governments have been squeezing NHS to death in terms of funding to try and privatize it?
- dr-detroit 4y ago[dead]
- dingusdew 4y ago[dead]
- MSFT_Edging 4y agoPeople love to starve the beast then point to the starving beast and say "Look its dying, this was always going to happen".
- automatic6131 4y ago>because the Tory governments have been squeezing NHS to death in terms of funding to try and privatize it? No. Often repeated, never true. The NHS has had at or above inflation budget increases every year of Tory government[1] https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/166A5/production/_101731819_chart-nhs_spend-srmmu-nc.png.webp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/166A5/production... Look! Real terms money on the Y-axis, it only goes up! "Squeezing in terms of funding", "Try and privatise it" are common myths repeated by the Labour party to get elected, and NHS bosses to increase the pie even further.
- wil421 4y agoWhat would the cost be if you had near 100% private in home care for whatever reason in the UK? It’s basically what they chose in this case, Medicare would’ve paid for the hospital and hospice. Even if there was a bill no one is obligated to pay it unless the estate has money for private care. In this case it’s assumed her estate doesn’t have the funds to pay for private care or rent an apartment. Her case also seems complicated because assisted living and hospice couldn’t tend to her needs but the hospital thought a lesser facility could provide it. Bouncing her back and forth.
- dtx1 4y agoThis just means that the Taxpayer took up that money. I'm sorry for your loss but this is insane. I'd rather die in a hospital where I don't take up valuable time from doctors and nurses to commute to my home to take care of me instead of taking care of people that might actually get better. This is a level of egoism that borders on narcissism and the tax payer has to pay for it. The American Healthcare system is insane but at least in this one regard the cost of being an unreasonable egoist is not being paid by the rest of society. Go fucking die in a hospital like everyone else and don't take away limited resources from people that might actually get better. Or if you do, at least pay the bill yourself.
- mindslight 4y agoYou clearly have no clue what an end of life shuffled between nursing home and hospital looks like cost wise. State paid nursing home fees are like $150k/yr last time I checked, most of that going to administration. It's certainly not going to the nursing assistants that they don't hire who aren't checking on you. Plus the portable mobile equipment (xray etc) that someone drives over and wheels in to perform perfunctory diagnostics, plus the ambulance rides back and forth to the hospital as the nursing home covers their ass, plus all the bills you rack up at the hospital as you're repeatedly dumped into the emergency room. Like it or not, that system has already been heavily socialized in the US. The only time someone is on the hook to pay is if their estate has money, which is avoidable with some estate planning (5?) years ahead of time. That's the fallback option for everybody "lucky" enough to reach it. It's gruesome, but not because it's cheap. FWIW When I was going through this with my dad, the private "insurance" company (a medicare advantage vendor) was starting a program where they had on call doctors that they wanted to send to your home, because keeping you out of the hospital saved them a significant amount of money.
- dtx1 4y agoThe American System (hint, i am not american) is very broken. Yet any sane system would obviously see benefits of centralizing end of life care for sick people. If you manage to build a system that's so broken that centralization of healthcare is MORE expensive for everyone than decentralized at home care than that system is the problem. And to be clear: It would be great if we had enough doctors, nurses and resources for everyone to die in their own home with all the amenities of a hospital specialized to end of life care but hat is practically impossible. And I don't mind socializing healthcare. On the contrary, I think it's a necessity for any civilized country. But given the aging societies of basically all western nations I would bet all I own that by the time I need end of life care, at home care with private nurses will become the privilege of the super wealthy. Here in Germany, the system is already essentially collapsing and it's not even a money issue, it's a personal issue. But sure let's burn it all to the ground for the now-dying so by the time my generation needs it there's nothing left.
- throwaway6734 4y agoClose to 50% or the federal budget is spent on social security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's a massive wealth transfer to the elderly already. What's the long term plan for the UKs elderly healthcare programs that it's an aging country?
- Turing_Machine 4y agoAh, yes. The country that invented the "Liverpool Care Pathway" (i.e., let the patients die of thirst, sedate them when they complain) to save money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the... As others have pointed out, it didn't cost "£0". It cost your fellow citizens the full amount. "The government" didn't pay her rent. Your fellow citizens did. "The government" didn't pay your father a carer's allowance. Your fellow citizens did. "The government" didn't pay for doctors and nurses to travel to her home. Your fellow citizens did. Now, I, personally, would prefer to see massive reforms in the U.S. system. But pretending that any system is going to cost "£0" is just intellectually dishonest.
- mrtranscendence 4y agoWhat makes you think this is a relevant response? Everybody knows that the NHS is funded by taxes. This is not a secret, there's not some common misconception that health care isn't actually paid for with money. "Your fellow citizens [paid]" isn't the gotcha you seem to think it is.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago> What makes you think this is a relevant response? Because the OP was claiming it cost "£0", when it clearly did not. > This is not a secret, there's not some common misconception that health care isn't actually paid for with money. Maybe you should tell the OP, since he is clearly operating under that exact "misconception".
- mrguyorama 4y agoNo you are just putting words in people's mouths. As an american, when I tell someone "I had to pay $400 to go get an ultrasound", nobody responds "ACKSHUALLY you paid $400 plus the $400 a month you pay for your premiums plus whatever funding comes from governments from your taxes". That point is only brought up to talk about how we actually pay a fuckload for healthcare even though it's a private industry and that's supposed to make it efficient or whatever.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago>It only looks like clickbait because you're used to a system that costs $$$ to get medical care. No it is clickbait because it says "she died at home" when in fact she died in an expensive rented apartment. This fact is unrelated to the reality that the system is broken and people can't get the care they need.
- em500 4y ago> Nurses and doctors there every day. But presumably not 24/7 = 168hr per week, which makes all the difference (and the vast majority of the $145k in costs). 168hr / week of care will require 3 to 4 FTEs, no way around that.
- nisegami 4y agoSounds unsustainable to be honest.