How To Stike Fear Into The Hearts of Obamacare Supporters

me | today | me

[snugs]

Coming from a country where we have government health care you have to be careful using this argument that it will be illegal to pay for a procedure.

In my country if you can afford it you can pay for it, we have a large private sector, crazy thing because in some cases the facilities and equipment is superior in the NHS they actually pay the NHS to use it. In this case the private patient gets immediate treatment at the same hospital using the same facilities that the NHS patient has to wait months for.

What is not allowed though they talking about changing this and in some cases some Health trusts have allowed it is part funded treatment. For example if you were diagnosed with a complaint and you and your doctor agreed one type of treatment was the best for you but if the NHS did not approve it or there is a waiting list for it would not be able to top up with cash to get it immediately and continue having checks ups etc under the NHS for this complaint. You would have to pay for the whole treatment and subsequent checks up yourself. Obviously there are ways and means of getting round this and many do. My own father has in that he has seen a consultant privately and then the same consultant who is the NHS consultant then works him up the list to see him subsequently and treat him under the NHS illegal but done often.

Personally in Britain I think this is the way the NHS will go and allow people to do this as it becomes more underfunded and more expensive and also people get more vocal about it. Part funded and part private I think is what will happen. The problem that IMHO can never go away though is that we will have to continue to pay for it in our pay packet regardless of how often we use it. Even if you pay for private insurance you still have to pay for the NHS service through taxes you cannot op out.

This is thing that people ought to be aware may happen in the US you will be able to continue with your private plan but you may also have to pay for the government one as well.

[snugs]

I doubt they would propose banning private health care but in effect for most people it would be the same as if they made it mandatory to pay for the government plan as most people would not be able to pay for both.

This is IMHO one of the biggest arguments that Americans should be putting forward.

[GeronL]

If we are not allowed to change our plans then it is the same as banning private insurance pretty much.

[Cheerio]

Glad to hear from you - missed you on these Sun morning threads lately.