Posted on 04/24/2008 8:01:21 AM PDT by britlabour
Firstly - apologies for this not being a news story but I really wanted to ask this question! As you know, in the UK we have universal healthcare. A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting conversation with a conservative American tourist outside Buckingham palace (we were both spectators at the London Marathon event). I was telling him about a hospital visit I had had recently and he replied that he had originally been opposed to socialised healthcare - until he suffered from chest pains at Heathrow, an ambulance arrived within six minutes. Basically what I wanted to ask was - what are the reservations that many Americans have to free healthcare, funded by the taxpayer and evenly spread nationwide (or statewide as the case may be). I know that it SOUNDS socialist - but sometimes it is a good thing to borrow ideas that are good from an otherwise failing ideology, as the British Conservatives did with the NHS. Any thoughts?
Dialysis is denied to those who reach 55 years of age. But they don’t get a bill.
I think Europeans misunderstand our system. They are fed lies about our system.
That’s the kind of thing I’m getting at! Britain seems to be (from my travels) the only state healthcare system that works. I only ever pay seven pence per pound (7%) national insurance (NI covers the NHS, not tax - by the way). So on my wages I pay £2,100 per year, yet over the last five years I have probably used around £3000 worth of health care.
Well that was a ridiculous comment. I am a conservative actually - I despised nationalised transport. There are no year long waiting lists, the average is 25 days for a major surgery.
Lets get things straight - I don’t believe in it completely. The main advantage is that the State sector will provide major hospitals in rural areas - areas they may not make profit for the private sector. In that situation people are getting healthcare close to home.
“he freely chose the situation he is in”
What if he can’t get promotion? Then he doesn’t deserve a doctor because he is incapable of promotion?
As I said, taxes are staggered so the poor don’t subsidise much.
that’s the worker’s chouice. he knows the risks getting into that position, so he has to sleep in the bed he made.
That must be the difference in the UK, here, the job market is such that if you are willing to sacrifice, work harder, get educated, maybe switch jobs, you can get a promotion, but the choice is in your hands.
I oppose government sponsored 'free' health care because in every case all over the world it results in rationing. In the worst cases the government demands to have a monopoly on health care and actually punishes patients and doctors for going outside the government plan to attend to care - the 1993 Clinton Plan included such verbage.
The fact of privitisation in both the UK and Canada is due to both nation's courts ruling that a wait for health care is not access to health care. Meaning that private health care is recognized as a right and not a mere privilege.
Moving on further, European style socialised healthcare is being bankrupted by the millions of lay-about muslims who do not contribute taxes to the healthcare budget yet whom are the principle recipients of such health care with their disproportionate requirements for prenatal and birthing care. Your systems simply cannot stand the pressure unless taxes are raised to 1950's levels to pay for these programs - in which case the UK will once again enjoy the dark, grey, pallid economic stupor of socialism at its peak.
The benefits of our system - being the free market - is found in facts such as that the State of Montana (with a population of less than one million) has more MRI scanners, more CT scanners, more cancer treatment options, and more ICU facilities than does Canada (with a population thirty times that of Montana). I use Montana as my example for the practical reason that Health Canada has established agreements to send their overflow to Montana hospitals due to Montana's ready supply of beds and equipment.
So ask yourself if the Canadian socialised medicine scheme is so superior to that of the USA then why must Canada (a nation rich with oil money) send her patients to one of America's least populated states for critical care? Why can't major Canadian cities afford to provide the same level of care as a predominantly rural state?
On to the issue of pharmacologicals. Canadians enjoy lower prices than Americans do because Canada contracts to buy drugs for thirty million people in the US market - this makes Canada the largest health provider active in the US drug market and they enjoy a tidy group discount - as they should. But take this to the next step and ask how many new drugs or medical procedures have been developed in Canada in the past fifty years? Or maybe you can name a wholly-owned Canadian pharmaceutical firm? You can't.
Again, what success you may see in the Canadian health care system is as a direct benefit of their being able to access the "flawed" American system. Without our health care system to use both as a fall back and as a means to acquire safe medicines at market prices, Canada would be in trouble.
I've pointed this out to my Canadian friends that if the USA were to adopt Canadian style health care in all its facets, then Canadians would die as their health care options and access to inexpensive drugs disappeared.
I trust this helps answer your question?
Here are the links for the news stories I mentioned in post#37:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22949433-29277,00.html
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jonathan/rosenblum_golubchuk.php3
I think you are misunderstanding something very important that several people here have already hinted at. In the US, even though we don’t have universal healthcare, the poor are already taken care of through medicade and other programs. All a universal program would do is put in the government’s hands a program that the people who aren’t already covered, can afford to pay on their own.
It is understandable that you don’t know this, if you listen to politicians, you would think all the poor are dieing from lack of insurance. This, of course, isn’t the case. The poor are already covered.
There are hospitals in rural areas here in the U.S., too.
Even if there is no hospital in a particular rural area, it would be possible for the state or local or even federal government to enact a plan so that a hospital is built there. That can be done without the entire medical system being placed under government control.
After reading all the posts, here is another question for you to ponder. Under socialized medicine where is the incentive to be innovative and cutting edge? One reason our health care is considered the best in the world is capitalism. If you are good at what you do, you get rewarded.
Well, sure!
For starters, I was recently told for a complete physical NEXT May is avbailable.
Now condisder: many of the serious health problems are best discovered in the early stages. And I HAVE insurance. Also, if the waiting lists are this bad, imagine what they’d be when everyone has access...INCLUDING people that exploit living off others backs as a way of life!
We also have a doctor/nurse shortage.
We also have a massive population compared to GB.
And I know of a woman diagnosed with breat cancer over there who was put on the waiting list to see an oncologist, but when they FINALLY called, the family explained they buried her last week!
Lastly, the government running anything is ruined.
And liberals running anything is destroyed!
The United States of America produces approximately half of the new pharmaceuticals of the whole world each year.
Your system and other socialist systems do not allow for private industry or private profits to create the miracle cures. Instead your socialist system feeds like a parasite off my American system. I also believe that the United States of American produces all sorts of other technical advances in the medical field also.
I wish you would pay your fair share of the enormous health benefits that your system leaches off my country.
Also, your cancer survival rates and those of other socialist health care systems are atrocious compared to the United States of America, and that includes all social groups in America, including the twenty million illegal immigrants who receive free health care in American hospitals all over America.
Your hospitals do not supply sheets and are not up to the standards of American hospitals.
I have read over the last ten years a large number of horror stories about inadequate care, rationing of care, lagging medical technology, there is so much lacking in your system that I am absolutely stunned that you are making these statements.
The United States of America has by its continuous introduction of new medicines and medical technology saved your system from total and complete collapse.
The socialist system has only produced squalor everywhere it has existed. Your county has a lower standard of living than it would have if private companies were allowed to provide what the government tries to plan.
Absolutely flabergasted, an intellectual target rich environment.
Ageing Britons face healthcare crisis
Healthcare (UK) in Crisis: Budgets & populations
British healthcare in crisis despite massive investment
There are hundreds of articles like these. It seems your system is completely collapsing under its own weight.
Ha ha, you are like the mythical “lifelong conservative” who is voting for BHO this election. Nice try.
Exactly....We pay $700 a month just to HAVE insurance, if we never saw a doctor, never bought a pill.
Then there’s co-pays, deductibles...etc. etc. etc.
What we have is broken, but nonetheless universal healthcare is NOT the answer!
Same here...it’s tiered.
So it’s gravy if you don’t make much in the first place.
So if being poor is a way of life, and you’re content off living off the backs of others...it’s all good.
And the more you make, the more is taken from you to cover the perpetually lazy, disabled...
Yup...we’re trying desperately to AVOID more of that over here!
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