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Patients Pay To Top Up 'Free' NHS [you mean health care really isn't free?]
Sky News ^ | April 23, 2007

Posted on 04/22/2007 9:46:48 PM PDT by jdm

Increasing numbers of patients are paying for private "top-up" treatments alongside NHS care, meaning the health service is no longer free, leading doctors are warning.

While politicians often claim care is free at the point of delivery "this mantra is now a political mirage," their report says.

The group has written to Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt, the opposition parties and the Royal Colleges, asking for a debate on the future of healthcare funding.

The study, published by the group Doctors for Reform, was written by three doctors, including Karol Sikora, professor of cancer medicine at Imperial College School of Medicine.

It says that patients are developing "sophisticated approaches to purchasing upgrades to their care", including in key areas like cancer and heart disease.

The report blamed patchy provision of NHS services across the UK, long waiting times and varied quality.

"Without reform to health funding, the use of "top-up" payments is likely to increase," the study concludes.

The Department of Health said: "Nobody should have to pay for any available NHS service, but patients have always had the choice of paying for private healthcare if they so wish."



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: nhs; notfree; patients
You mean socialized medicine is a bad idea? /sarc
1 posted on 04/22/2007 9:46:57 PM PDT by jdm
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To: jdm
I think the immigration problem in Britain bears part of the blame.
2 posted on 04/22/2007 9:53:05 PM PDT by Cyropaedia ("Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principal of evil...".)
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To: jdm

Trust me, anyone in Britain who can afford extra health insurance carries extra health insurance. When you need your gall bladder out, you really don’t want to wait 2 years for a surgery appointment.


3 posted on 04/22/2007 10:13:53 PM PDT by originalbuckeye (I want a hero....I'm holding out for a hero (politically))
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To: Cyropaedia
I think the immigration problem in Britain bears part of the blame.

You don’t mean to say that people would immigrate to another country to get free health care do you?

Why that is a racist remark!

Those people are just trying to better their lives.

If that means they need free health care to better their lives who are we to say they are wrong (just because we have to pay the bills)!

/Sarcasm

4 posted on 04/22/2007 10:20:56 PM PDT by Pontiac (Patriotism is the natural consequence of having a free mind in a free society.)
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To: jdm

free ?


5 posted on 04/22/2007 10:47:44 PM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: originalbuckeye

“Trust me, anyone in Britain who can afford extra health insurance carries extra health insurance.”


Nope. I don’t. Most of my family don’t either. Had an angioplasty last year and only had to wait six weeks which is fair enough considering that St Thomas’ has one of the the busiest cardiac departments in Europe.


6 posted on 04/23/2007 6:26:12 AM PDT by ThatchersKiddie
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To: ThatchersKiddie

Sorry. When I lived in Britain everybody that I knew, who could afford it, carried private insurance. And you waited 6 weeks for an angioplasty? You are lucky to still be with us. My husband’s cousin waited 2 years for a gall bladder op and my sister-in-law spent the first night, after having her first child, in the hall of the hospital because there weren’t any beds available. Having worked in health care in Britain, I like our system much better.


7 posted on 04/23/2007 4:53:55 PM PDT by originalbuckeye (I want a hero....I'm holding out for a hero (politically))
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