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That's interesting. I wasnt directly suggesting it was reason to support a public plan btw. Just that it sounds pretty stinky. I also would add that I think y

• ars 17y ago
  I think in the UK the insurance people tell the doctors what to do. But they hide it well, and it doesn't seem to cause a problem. (Or maybe it just doesn't bother the people as much, the US has a more independent culture.) Could a doctor in the UK prescribe an experimental treatment? Could he prescribe it and get insurance to pay for it? I bet not without a fight. Perhaps the difference is that there, the fight is behind the scenes so the patient never knows about it (if it's rejected I bet the doctor never even mentions it as a possible treatment). In the US the insurance belongs to the patient, so it's the patients job to handle them (with help). In the UK it's not so.
  • ErrantX 17y ago
    Could a doctor in the UK prescribe an experimental treatment?Could he prescribe it and get insurance to pay for it? I bet not without a fight. Yes, because insurance doesn't pay for it. You can get experimental treatment on the NHS - I think it is a little more of a hoop to jump through and depends on the actual hospital your at (for example most will insist other forms of medicine have been tried first). Here doctors are a lot less litigatable as individuals; I think that is the main reason health care is better here. Without frivolous lawsuits and insurance companies breathing down their necks.
    • ars 17y ago
      I think the insurance companies considered Shooter's treatment experimental, which is why they gave him trouble. But apparently did pay at the end.
      • olefoo 17y ago
        You missed the part where he has to keep on fighting to keep the coverage and says that he expects to lose his coverage eventually. And it sounds like you don't have enough experience of being on the wrong end of an insurance companies attempts to kill you to be less credulous about their nature. The problem is that in the US at this time, health insurance companies are structurally evil. Evil in that they are the source of unnecessary pain, suffering and death. That they cause this suffering in the name of their 'fiduciary responsibility' to their shareholders only compounds the evil.
        • dschobel 17y ago
          Insurance companies are neither Good nor Evil. That's absurd. They're simply in the unenviable position of having to be the decision makers in the distribution of a scarce resource (health care). Saying the insurance companies are evil is no more informed than the people who railed at the Obama administration for suggesting that end of life care should be rationed. The most fundamental issue is that health-care is so damned expensive in the US. That's why we get in the degenerate situation we're in now where it seems like insurance companies are the arbiters of who shall live and who shall die.
          • olefoo 17y ago
            I have to disagree with you. I used the term evil in a considered fashion to describe the moral situation in which anyone who is running a health insurance company in the US at this time finds themselves. To anyone who has bothered to investigate the actual functioning of the system at this time the idea of the current form of health insurance as the rational rationing of scarce resources is laughable. The structure of health insurance protection in the US at this time extracts almost a third of every dollar spent on health care. And those administrative costs do not contribute towards better health care, chronic or acute. And that is why I am not afraid to make a moral judgment; an industry that steals the third part of the money entrusted to it's care at the expense of the sick and dying is evil. How can we remedy this evil?
        • deleted 17y ago
          [deleted]
  • Quarrelsome 17y ago
    Uhhhh, we don't have insurance in the UK. Basically the NHS is your fallback, it will (more or less) treat anything that: "negatively impacts your quality of life". However it may not be the very best care and you may have to wait for it (depending on the contention for services in your area and the treatment you need). If you want quicker service then you can go private and pay for it. In terms of experimental treatment I know the NHS may suggest it if they are unable to effectively treat you. Basically the UK system is the American system (e.g. you can always go private) without the suck (if you're broke you still get fixed, just on a slower timeframe).
    • gaius 17y ago
      Uhhhh, we don't have insurance in the UK. We do have this thing called NICE tho'. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1923989.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1923989.stm
      • notauser 17y ago
        NICE doesn't face the same choices as insurance companies. NICE picks treatments based on trying to get the best results for the whole population whilst only spending a finite amount of money. Insurance companies pick treatments based on trying to get the largest amount of profit compatible with people being willing to carry on paying for insurance.
        • gaius 17y ago
          It's much the same from the perspective of the person being denied treatment, having paid NI their whole life.
          • Quarrelsome 17y ago
            You can't compare taxes to services, Tobacco tax gets NOWHERE near covering the medical costs that the system has to bear for example. NI is pretty cheap and the only kinds of treatments that are going to be prevented are those that are incredibly expensive, experimental or incredibly rare. You can still go private though. Same sort of scenario for pensions, if you don't save for yourself you will still get a state pension. You will have to live on Tesco value bread even though you "paid taxes your entire life". The defining line is: If you're a UK resident and you're not wealthy and you don't save any money you WILL be catered for: TO A DEGREE. Sure its not always fair but it has to be pragmatic at the edge cases to work at all.