paying for health care in uk

Discussion in 'Economics' started by morganist, Jul 18, 2009.

  1. morganist

    morganist Guest

    i saw this post and know some people here are passionate about the health care in uk being paid with taxes. so i thought you might be interested. looks like it might not be working after all.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8156279.stm
     
  2. lrm21

    lrm21

    Nice find.

    And of course as always a caveat for the free riders.

     
  3. the1

    the1

    A small co-pay to go to the doc's office should be a part of any health care system, whether private or public. There has to be some sort of out-of-pocket cost to deter abuses.
     
  4. Eight

    Eight

    LOL, long queues and now you have to pay per visit, I wonder how many people in the US with health insurance through their employers are getting a cheaper deal with better doctors...
     
  5. Mvic

    Mvic

    There is no comparison between UK free care and that provided to someone with good insurance in the US. For a start many of the more sophisticated and highly effective drugs that have been developed in the last 10 years and that are widely used in the US will not be available to patients in the UK. The list of deficiencies goes on and on. What their system does well though, is that it provides easy access to health care to the whole population and no one is going BK over there due to medical bills. The quality of care, especially for very sick patients, is markedly inferior. Of course we pay about double per capita here in the US, so there should be no reason why we shouldn't enjoy high quality universal coverage, no reason other than that lawyers and health insurers and other middlemen and leaches on the health care system suck up 40% of the health care dollars spent and provide no improvement in the care for patients nor do anything to improve access. If Obama and congress were serious about containing costs they would cut some of this 40% and use the savings to increase access and no new taxes would have to be levied. The day they announce tort reform is the day that you know they are serious about reform and cost containment. In the meantime they will preserve the lawyer's fat paychecks at the expense of higher taxes, higher premiums, and lower reimbursement which will translate to longer waits and less access. In other words, more people will pay more and everyone will get less.
     
  6. You all are fear mongers. Some healthcare for everybody is better than none for millions. The UK system is a good compromise between high quality healthcare like in France or other European countries and the ongoing scam in the US. Taxes remain reasonable in the UK, in France not.
    ex: 30+ on captal gains, 20% VAT and let's not even talk about income tax and other "prélèvements sociaux".

    when you take domicile in th eUK, you go to the NHS offcie and register and voilà, free healthcare for you as a UK resident.
    That's wonderful. You catch the swine flu ? Just go the office down the street and they will take care of you free of charge.
    Plus they were very nice when I was there. These doctors are not there for your money, they are like the selfless nuns of the 19th century who were providing healthcare in those days.
    If you have the money you can always pay up to get "better" doctors or better treatments such as very expensive drugs that may not work better than a placebo . You don't think the Royals go to their local NHS office for their healthcare , do you ?
     
  7. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Most private health plans via employers in the U.S. require that you co-pay $25 to $50 per doctors visit depending on the plan. This is on top of paying a percentage of the healthcare premium monthly cost out of your paycheck each month. Most of the tech companies I have worked for used United Health Care or Blue Cross/Blue Shield. My monthly cost for a family plan was about $300, while the company paid about $1000 for its share. You also normally have to pay 20% (in 80/20 plans) of expensive hospital stays, operations, or labs. These are considered good plans in the U.S.

    Seems like the "socialist" countries have a much better deal for their citizens.
     
  8. RAY

    RAY

    I also say everyone should have Life Insurance too. Is it fair that I have it, and others don't? I think not! If Joe Blow dies without insurance what is homemaker Jane Blow going to do?

    We should all have great car insurance. Imagine the productivity gained by keeping our citizens on the road.

    ... and Nutrition is lacking. We should provide 3 QUALITY meals a day, to every American. Hell, lets throw in a personal trainer too. Think of all the personal trainer jobs we would create!

    We should all get BMW 750li's too. They make any commute, or driving experience better. Think of all the lives we could save by surviving accidents one would have perished in if they were still driving a 1985 Corolla.

    You know, some families are going on a nice family vacations. They are great, everyone should be able to enjoy this. It will improve our quality of life, and family bonding. If we all could go on great family vacations we would improve parenting, we would lessen the number of criminals housed in jails/prisons, saving Americans millions!

    Wow, man what were we thinking all these hundreds of years? All of this great stuff for FREE!!! Just imagine the America we could have if we had thought of this sooner!

    PS. I have a solution for the quality and quantity drop with socialized medicine; PAY the doctors, nurses, EMS, Hospitals DOUBLE what they make now. Damn, I should be in Washington! Maybe I'll run for Congress ... I'll give everyone TONS of FREE shit.
     
  9. Eight

    Eight

    Turning my health care over to the wonderful public sector is not my idea of a good time.. name one thing they do well...

    And all those insurance people and attorneys might be the reason we have such good health care. They sue bad doctors out of existence, the AMA could take care of that but no, we have to go all anarchist and sue the incompetents until they have to go to England or Africa to practice... Profits drive development of medical equipment, wow, I don't want to get xrayed with an old machine, they used very high doses of radiation, enough to cause cancer...

    What would the pace of technical advancement be in a government run healthcare system... like the one in Cuba... LOL... thank goodness for centrist Democrats or we would be embracing the tender mercies of Communism already... stupid bastards are always advocating some shit that doesn't work and screws over productive people, no wonder we killed so many of them in the 20th Century, it's not like you can tell them anything...

    So basically the way I see it is that the UK is headed in the direction of having a lousy system that dumps grandpa off at the morgue because he's not worth much, doesn't invest in technology development and charges for visits... if the trend continues eventually the out of pocket costs will be equal to the US's private insurance system and the care will suck and if you are old the care will really suck.. I hate idealogues...
     
  10. gwb-trading

    gwb-trading

    Yeah... while we are at it..... it absurd that we funding anything that people benefit from. While we are at it, let's get rid of the following absurd programs in the U.S.:

    - K through 12 free public education.
    - the public road system.
    - public parks.

    I don't use any of these services, seems absurd that I should pay for them.

    If you are going to take this type of direction, you will need to abolish all the existing public programs based on your line of thought below.


     
    #10     Jul 19, 2009