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This is the Government that You Want to Run Health-care?

Architect said:
although the Scots here may be as surprised as me to learn that it was done at Ross Hall.
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Not that surprised. My cousin's new hip was done at Clydebank, in what used to be Health Care International, the big private concern that was going to import all these wealthy Saudis for surgery, but went bust. I gather the NHS didn't just take over the hospital, but also the adjoining hotel which was built for the Saudi relatives to come and stay near their loved ones. The NHS is using it for the same purpose - patients' relatives can stay there for free while their loved ones are in hospital.

My former neighbour also had her hip done there, and I gather she's now needing the other one done. However, she was in Wishaw General with an unrelated complaint a couple of weeks ago, so the hip may be postponed.

Another cousin had a knee done at Clydebank too, last year. They told her that they knew she would need the other one done in the near future, it was all in the system, so when she felt she had got to the stage of needing the operation, never mind her GP, just call them directly, cut out the middle-man, and they'd book her in.

I suppose that's different in that the NHS actually owns HCI now. However I've heard quite often of the NHS referring people to Ross Hall too. I think they're quite happy to get elective surgery out of the way in private facilities. There was a big scandal some years ago about some kid who died or was seriously harmed as a private patient in Ross Hall, but I suspect that was an isolated incident as I've never heard of any others.

My two cousins have fairly modest means. The hip one (the malnourished baby!) was a bank teller who took early retirement and now works part time in admin in her local cottage hospital (she lives in Millport). Her husband was a lab technician in marine biology until he took early retirement due to cancer of the colon. However, he had successful treatment for that and seems to be fine. (Earlier in his life he had several operations for recurring nasal polyps.)

The knee cousin was a school teacher all her life. Her husband was unemployed for a long time, and died some years ago of prostate cancer - also treated on the NHS but it was discovered too late.

The neighbour is very much working class (though her daughter is a solicitor), and has been a widow for quite a few years now.

None of these people has the means to fund that sort of treatment themselves. None of these people has ever had to bother about getting health insurance or getting insurance companies to pay up. All of these people have been treated, and treated well. That's how well we're all getting on with our six-month waits for healthcare!

I know so many people who've had this sort of care from the NHS. I presume comparable people in the USA are being treated one way or another. However, I can't emphasise enough the sheer peace of mind engendered by knowing that you will be treated and looked after in such circumstances, without even having to think about where the money would come from.

I'm not sure the US posters really understand this last point. I hear so much from them about dealings with insurance companies, lots of form-filling and dialogue to get authorisation for treatment, words like deductions and co-pay which I don't understand. How much time and sheer mental emergy does it take to deal with all this? Especially when you're ill and worried?

Yes, you'll get people bitching about the NHS all the time. It's very easy to take something like that for granted, and to set off on a rant every time there's dirty floor, or a doctor is running behind with his appointments, or something gets lost in the system, or there's another TV programme about some poor old soul who's had an operation cancelled or something. And people like Jerome will pick up on this and loftily inform us that our system sucks and we need to realise that.

However, what this thread has dome (among other things) is really make me appreciate what we get from the NHS - the peace of mind, the excellent care, the sheer reliability of the system. I shudder to contemplate the alternative.

I simply don't understand why the Merikan people aren't arising with one voice and demanding that their government get its act together and deliver the benefits that we take for granted.

Rolfe.
 
Mmm, just mentally summarising.

The NHS costs us, on a per-capita basis, slightly less than the Merikans pay to fund Medicare/Medicaid. However, only a small proportion of the US population (the poor and the elderly) can access Medicare/Medicaid, most of the people who are paying into these systems cannot access them and derive no personal benefit from them. In contrast every British taxpayer can access the NHS, and derive benefit from it.

Most of the US population funds its healthcare through insurance-based provision of some sort, for which it pays a premium in addition to the tax which funds Medicare/Medicaid. Some others (the very wealthy or those who feel real lucky) choose to pay from their own capital.

Er, OK. And in Britain we can do exactly the same, if we want to. And hey, the insurance premiums are significantly less than in the US system, because the insurers know they will never be called on to pay for emergency treatment (which the NHS always picks up). But look, the Merikans protest, you're paying twice here! Why should you pay tax to fund the NHS, then pay insurance over and above that? Well, just the same way you guys pay tax for Medicare/Medicaid and then pay for insurance over and above that. The fact that we can access the service paid for by our taxes if we want to makes up better off, not worse! (And the fact that the bulk of the population chooses not to bother taking out such insurance, even though it could probably afford it, might reveal somehting to the observer also.)

We can also choose to pay for private treatment out of our own funds if we want to. The big difference here is that we don't have to. If for some reason we would rather have a procedure done privately (like my mother and her cataracts) then we have the option. But unlike in the US, if the cost is beyond us, and we have no insurance cover, we're not left with no cover. The NHS will sort us out, and nearly always after a wait time which is only a social inconvenience.

What's not to like? Where is the downside? If you really don't want to have any truck with the NHS, you're still paying less in tax under the British system than you would be under the US system, and you're just as free to choose private insurance or to self-fund private treatment.

Why isn't there open revolt in the USA about this?

I think there are two themes coming out. One is that people in the US don't believe how well we're served by the NHS. Part of this is a natural consequence of media coverage that concentrates on things going wrong - "house fire" is news, "thirty million houses did not catch fire last night" is not. But I also suspect that the US media is talking up the problems, could it possibly be in order to keep the lid on any US demands for equal provision?

The other is the very title of this thread. People in the US don't believe that their government or political system is capable of delivering what Nye Bevan (to his name be all the glory and the praise) delivered for us in 1947.

I think you're electing the wrong politicians, guys.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Mmm, just mentally summarising.

[snip]

The other is the very title of this thread. People in the US don't believe that their government or political system is capable of delivering what Nye Bevan (to his name be all the glory and the praise) delivered for us in 1947.

I think you're electing the wrong politicians, guys.

Rolfe.
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No, we're electing politicians. And that is a very big problem.
 
balrog666 said:
No, we're electing politicians. And that is a very big problem.
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If you're trying to say that anyone who wants to be in charge, should not be allowed to be in charge, well, that's a universal problem.

We all elect politicians. Some of them are completely disastrous. It happens.

People are people. Some people try to get elected, and some of them succeed. Some of them do well, more of them do badly. It's the same the world over.

Is there any reason why the US should have a particular propensity for electing the disastrous ones, compared to other developed first-world nations? Why can't the US get its act together on this one when so many other countries manage it?

And why is the population not in open revolt, demanding the sort of benefits enjoyed by citizens of these other countries?

Rolfe.
 
Does anyone have any idea what proportion of the US population is covered by medicaid?

I have just begun to wonder whether the NHS actually provides healthcare for a larger number of people in absolute terms as well as proportionatly. I reckon the break-even point is about 20% of the population.
 
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Rolfe said:
If you're trying to say that anyone who wants to be in charge, should not be allowed to be in charge, well, that's a universal problem.

We all elect politicians. Some of them are completely disastrous. It happens.

People are people. Some people try to get elected, and some of them succeed. Some of them do well, more of them do badly. It's the same the world over.

Is there any reason why the US should have a particular propensity for electing the disastrous ones, compared to other developed first-world nations? Why can't the US get its act together on this one when so many other countries manage it?
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The only problem that politicians try to solve is how to pander to the lowest common denominator voter so they can be re-elected.

Rolfe said:
And why is the population not in open revolt, demanding the sort of benefits enjoyed by citizens of these other countries?

Rolfe.
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For the same reason they are not rioting for free bread and circuses.
 
balrog666 said:
No, are you?
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Nope.

It just struck me that when you said "No, we're electing politicians" you were either advocating the abolition of politicians (anarchism), or the abolition of elections (fascism or communism).

If you're not advocating these positions, could you elaborate on what you meant by "No, we're electing politicians" after all?
 
Well, he said that politicians pander to the lowest common denominator to get re-elected. So they do. But we've got the NHS, and the USA - well, hasn't. People are people the world over. So you can't just say, politicians are scum, as if that explains it. Our scum manage it.

Rolfe.
 
volatile said:
Nope.

It just struck me that when you said "No, we're electing politicians" you were either advocating the abolition of politicians (anarchism), or the abolition of elections (fascism or communism).

If you're not advocating these positions, could you elaborate on what you meant by "No, we're electing politicians" after all?
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The modern rise of politics as a profession, and especially as a well paid profession, hasn't been working out very well.
Bringing in business approaches on a crisis-to-crisis basis has only tended to farm out the quantifiable (and deliverable) aspects of government to businesses while leaving the foxes in charge of the henhouse.

Meanwhile, the recent explosive proliferation of the cheap video equipment, digital cameras, cellular phones, and the dissemination mechanism of the Internet, especially coupled with Open Government rules, has produced a large number people paying attention to their "representatives". And a large number of kooks, fanatics, advocate groups, et al. doing it too.
Anyway, I think a shake out is due and we have yet to see which way things will go.


Architect said:
Sorry, I don't see what you mean there. Two nations divided by a common language and all that. Please clarify.
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They already have bread (Food Stamps) and free circuses (400 channels of brain-rotting television). Frankly, who is going to riot for nationalized health care when they already have it in government-run MedicAid - what possible improvement would they expect to gain?


Rolfe said:
Well, he said that politicians pander to the lowest common denominator to get re-elected. So they do. But we've got the NHS, and the USA - well, hasn't. People are people the world over. So you can't just say, politicians are scum, as if that explains it. Our scum manage it.

Rolfe.
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Your scum (;)) managed to make the transition at a particular place and time. Times change - I'm sure if FDR had thought of it, or thought he could have gotten away with it, he would have tried it. OTOH, everything goes around ...
 
balrog666 said:
Frankly, who is going to riot for nationalized health care when they already have it in government-run MedicAid - what possible improvement would they expect to gain?
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You really think Medicaid is the pinnacle of nationalized health care? Have you been reading the thread at all?
 
quixotecoyote said:
You really think Medicaid is the pinnacle of nationalized health care? Have you been reading the thread at all?
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Are you being silly?

Why would anyone currently receiving MedicAid think that more of the same is going to be better?

Or who else do you think should be "outraged" or is going to "revolt" over the issue to get more government involvement?
 
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