American National Health Service?

[Rheghead]

I see President Obama is pushing for a NHS-style health service. Opponents in the USA have been fairly critical by referring to our NHS in a bad light. This debate has made me think of our system in a few ways.

Can our system be improved?

Should we go for private medical insurance funded system?

Are the american critics being fair on our system and ignoring some pretty important benefits?

Stephen Hawking has been used as an example of its failure yet he has come out fighting to defend the NHS.

Are we paying too much for the NHS?

Frankly, I am strongly in favor of the NHS as my life would have been greatly different without it.

What does the NHS mean to you? I think it more than a health service, I think it binds Britain spiritually as well. I think that is one difference with the US, they pay for themselves individually mostly and that reflects in their attitudes with life in general.

I think Obama's presidency will be historically judged if he gets what he wants otherwise he could end up looking like a lame duck in his first year.

[EDDIE]

I think the nhs is good thing especially for people that cant afford medical insurances or for other reasons i dont mind paying a we bit more into nhs if i thought it would improve it the only problem i have is the money getting spent wisely.
The thing i didnt relise the other the day was if ure holding a donar card like me i didnt relise that if u die some of ure parts inside could go to private hospital were someone is paying for the operation so in effect someone has bought ure parts i think thats wrong because there is a big difference between donating and selling

[crayola]

The current debate as presented by the BBC and others is absurd. There is a whole host of possibilities that lie between the American system and the monolithic state-controlled NHS. I wish I knew more about them.

Do we have any French, German, Canadian, Italian ..... orgers who can enlighten us?

[Tristan]

My father was a surgeon in both the UK and Canada. The biggest problem he had was the level of cleanliness in the old UK hospitals.
From my own perspective there are some things that are covered in the UK that aren't universal in Canada. Dental care especially orthodontic care would normally be covered by private insurance in Canada. Fortunately many people can get this relatively affordable through their employer.
The biggest problems I see with the NHS are what appear to be a very high level of bureaucracy and my biggest pet peeve which is the post code lottery for many treatments.

[tonkatojo]

I see President Obama is pushing for a NHS-style health service. Opponents in the USA have been fairly critical by referring to our NHS in a bad light. This debate has made me think of our system in a few ways.

Can our system be improved?

Should we go for private medical insurance funded system?

Are the american critics being fair on our system and ignoring some pretty important benefits?

Stephen Hawking has been used as an example of its failure yet he has come out fighting to defend the NHS.

Are we paying too much for the NHS?

Frankly, I am strongly in favor of the NHS as my life would have been greatly different without it.

What does the NHS mean to you? I think it more than a health service, I think it binds Britain spiritually as well. I think that is one difference with the US, they pay for themselves individually mostly and that reflects in their attitudes with life in general.

I think Obama's presidency will be historically judged if he gets what he wants otherwise he could end up looking like a lame duck in his first year.

Did I not read him saying he didn't want it based on any other country he wanted an American designed health service.
Totally agree with being in favour, I too owe the NHS a ruddy big thanks.
The NHS services are vast and varied, but what would you or any one else like to cull ?. Personally I would ban all private health insurance if I could, the principal is obscene that anyone can buy a better operation or a quicker one just because they can afford it, often using NHS hospital beds and staff/consultants jumping queues by being seen first because they can pay. But that's my view and I wouldn't want to start a war with them.

[brandy]

its not been asked for but id i may give an americans view of the NHS after living the first 22 years of my life with the american system and NOT coming from a wealthy family able to afford private health insurance which can easily cost upwards a 1000 dollars a month for a family of 4.
the cons of the american system in my experiance.
you can not get a doctors app. at all unless you are able to pay the consultation fee up front, which when i left in 1999 and my GP's was 65 dollars. that was just for the consultation. then any tests on top of that were added on, and of course meds are insane prices. usually between 10-20 dollars per item for generic and up into the hundreds for named meds. i was quite lucky as i had private health care thru my work, which actually cost more than what i pay now for the nhs, and it covered about 60 percent of my medical costs if it fell within the lines of the insurance. my cousin had a baby about 5 years ago and it cost her $3000.00 to go into the hospital pop the baby out and go home the next day.
just recently my cousin Tammy had a very horrible find.
a mole that her husband had been concerned over for a few years was getting bigger on her back. finally after 2 years his insurance would cover her going to the doctor to have it looked at. it turned out that it was malignant, and she has gone thru so very much in the past year trying to see if it was to late to stop the damage or if they had gotten to it in time.
he has to work two jobs just to keep the family afloat with the basics like food, electricity ect.. yet they are not eligible for any gov. help with medical bills. in 1996 a 5 min abulance ride cost 500 dollars as my grandmother found out after suffering a heart attack, a week of icu later and a pace maker her hospital bill was in the range of 70,000 dollars. which thanks to my grandfather being a war veteran and her his widow she was lucky enough to get help.
my aunt debbie who is a diabetic has had to quit taking her medicine because they can no longer afford the prescriptions. it really upset me as we take the same thing which is metaphormine and mine is basically free and she can not afford hers.
my own mother who is dying is living on her own in a tiny mobile home because she can not afford anything more, even with disabilty and medicare. after nearly dying on the hospital floor and being resuscitated she was only in icu for 24 hours, before being moved to the normal ward, then within hours being discharged from the hospital and put into rehabilitate care. the care home she was placed in is only covered for 20 days then she was sent home, with a broken hip, unable to walk, still extremely ill. within a week she had collapsed and was back in the icu just to repeat the same thing.
to the majority of dr. and nurses in the US you are just a number. not a living breathing soul.
you are pushed thru the door as fast as you can be. it was just on the news a few months ago about a woman dying on the floor of an emergency room while waiting to be seen. she had called out for help several times before slumping down and convulsing on the floor and dying. this was seen by several staff and patients. it was recorded by cctv and made national headlines.
hospital waiting lines are not even in hours anymore but days. if you do not have a really good private medical insurance then you are put to the back of the line or even turned away.
a private hospital does not even have to see you if you do not have insurance.
you could be laying bleeding to death on their door and if you do not have insurance they can tell you to go to a public hospital.
ahemm now onto the NHS:
i know that ive only been here for 10 years, and that i live in the far north where it is not so very populated.
but the service has been nothing but stellar!
the drs, nurses, midwives, surgeons, and every other medical staff i have ever met have been wonderful. when my children were sick i was able to get an app. that day. i have never waited for hours in a waiting room to see a dr.
when ive gone into hospital, everything has happened quickly smoothly and professionaly.
all in all the NHS is miles above the American system and a huge thank you for all the peeps working their bums off every day to help us!

[George Brims]

I'm from Caithness but live in California. Unfortunately I think President Obama and his party have made a hash of this business. They didn't get on top of the utterly ridiculous propaganda effort waged by the medical insurance companies and nip it in the bud right at the start. Loons like Sara Palin were running around saying the proposed plan would have "death panels" deciding whether an old person or her Down Syndrome child should be saved. You can imagine how that panicked many older voters. An outright lie of course.

Now it looks like the "public option" (a government-run alternative to private health insurance) will be hard to push through, although some effective pushback has started against the nutters who have been turning up at Congress members town hall meetings and disrupting them, and calling Obama both a Nazi and a Socialist. A fine example of how to deal with a heckler is to be found here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/0..._n_262682.html

By the way I regard the NHS as a national treasure. An interesting article a few days ago in the US pointed out that although Labour introduced it, Winston Churchill had also been in favour of setting it up, but had been voted out of office before he could make it a reality. Winnie spent a lot of effort after that trying ot regain at least some of the credit for its creation.

[golach]

By the way I regard the NHS as a national treasure. An interesting article a few days ago in the US pointed out that although Labour introduced it, Winston Churchill had also been in favour of setting it up, but had been voted out of office before he could make it a reality. Winnie spent a lot of effort after that trying ot regain at least some of the credit for its creation.

Well done George, straight from the hip, the story from the other side of the pond

[Sporran]

Like George, I regard the NHS as a national treasure - my American husband and I both do. We'd be only too delighted if they had something similar over here in the USA! The American medical insurance companies are indeed behind all this ridiculous propaganda, because they stand to lose too much money if President Obama's plans come into fruition. I'm tired of the doom and gloom propaganda ads on TV here, that unfortunately seem to be brainwashing some people in this country. I like Barney Frank's response to one such woman - "On what planet do you spend most of your time?" Exactly!! Wake up America!!! President Obama's got the right idea! He's not the one with Nazi policies - it's the darned medical insurance companies! They have too much
control over what a doctor can and cannot do in this country - over what they'll pay for, and what they won't! Like President Obama says, health care has become too much of a profit making business over here - and it's high time it stopped!!!

[Bookworm]

I must say that as another that has lived in both countries the NHS is my preferred system. In the US if you don't have insurance or alot of money you won't be seen.

I know that my uncle had a heart attack in the US and still needed to pay around £20K once he got out of hospital and he had good insurance. He had to sell stock that he was saving for his retirement to pay for it.

Insurance in the US can be very complicated; there are so many kinds, major medical, preventative, co-pays, etc. and most are tied into your employers. If you change employers and say your partner has asthma, your partner will not be covered under a new policy because its a pre-existing conditions (this will even extend to children).

This is why alot of people can't change jobs and now with the credit crunch many will have lost their jobs and their insurance.

An NHS system would actually benefit Americans.

[brandy]

most def. bookworm.
the medical system in America is so bad at the moment that it cant get much further down before it hits rock bottom.
another thing i personally like about the NHS and the Doctors here is the aversion to hand out pain killers and the like. the drs in America tend to hand them out like candy.
sometimes i think there are more people addicted to prescription drugs than street drugs.

[redeyedtreefrog]

Apparently America is the only developed nation which doesnt have "free" healthcare for the poor

[DOCTOR]

Can our system be improved?

Yes, the NHS can be improved if there is more money, more resources which includes increased staffing levels.

Should we go for private medical insurance funded system?

Private insurance funded system is based on profit making system. The companies which are running these see it and use it as making more money. In this system people could be over-investigated or at times could be over-treated.Likewise if they dont have adequate cover they will be definately under-investigated and under-treated

Are the american critics being fair on our system and ignoring some pretty important benefits?

The American critics are not fair on our system because the critics are bias working with the private healthcare companies.

Hawking has been used as an example of its failure yet he has come out fighting to defend the NHS.

No one can comment on this as no one knows his detailed medical history.

Are we paying too much for the NHS?

We are not paying too much for the NHS slightly more would provide more funding for the NHS.

The greatest thing about our NHS is that it is free to all at the point of entry rich or poor.

[Whitewater]

Must thank Brandy and all our American friends for giving us the facts. It is something I have known about for years as my wife has many cousins in America, several have lost their retirement savings attempting to pay for medical care, many are still working hard in their 70s just to pay for hospital treatment.

Yes, we all gurn at the NHS some time or another, but at the end of the day we are all thankful for it. I have been on several occasions and I guess all of us have been at one time or another.

Sorry Brandy, tried to give you a good rep for your post, but I was told to spread it around a bit.

[crayola]

This bilateral discussion is following partisan lines similar to the ones in the US and the UK media. The US and UK systems are not the only ones, most other developed countries have systems which sort of lie between these two. I know very little about these systems but I have experienced one or two first hand. Anyway, here are a couple of articles I googled quickly.

Europe's major health systems and how they work (from Reuters)

Study shows Austria has the best health care system in Europe in 2007

The second contains this diagram

Britain lies at the bottom of the pile.

Can anyone with detailed knowledge or experience of other European systems comment on them?

Thanks to Tristan for his bit on comparing Canada with the UK.

[Aaldtimer]

That diagram is utterly meaningless without any parameters.

[crayola]

That diagram is utterly meaningless without any parameters.

I know, but a girl sometimes has to resort to desperately provocative measures to try to drag people screaming out of their US/UK ruts.

[tonkatojo]

Yes, the NHS can be improved if there is more money, more resources which includes increased staffing levels.



Private insurance funded system is based on profit making system. The companies which are running these see it and use it as making more money. In this system people could be over-investigated or at times could be over-treated.Likewise if they dont have adequate cover they will be definately under-investigated and under-treated



The American critics are not fair on our system because the critics are bias working with the private healthcare companies.



No one can comment on this as no one knows his detailed medical history.






We are not paying too much for the NHS slightly more would provide more funding for the NHS.

The greatest thing about our NHS is that it is free to all at the point of entry rich or poor.

That is the voice of reason and I agree.
What is your view on my thoughts that Private Health should be outlawed or banned in this country (UK).
Do you think it would cause to many problems with consultants, surgeons or hospital managers nice little earners, organising these queue jumping by paying "private" taking up NHS resources beds ETC, just because they have the cash or luck to have inherited money, while the rest of us have to get in the queue and wait.
I believe the way they do it is pay for a "private" consultation then get well ahead on the NHS waiting list as the rest of us get put further down the queue to see the same consultant when he has time to see us.

A bit of a rant but I genuinely would like your opinion.

[bettedaviseyes]

HAS ANYONE WATCHED "SICKO" IT SHOCKED ME HERE'S A SUMMARY BLOW....

In this documentary, the director/writer Michael Moore exposes the dysfunctional North American health care system, oriented to huge profits and not for their mission of saving lives. Further, he shows the corruption in the political system, with members of government and congress "bought" by the corporations and the situation of the average American citizens, including those that volunteered to work in the rescue mission of the September 11th. Then he travels to Canada, Great Britain and France to compare their systems showing their hospital, doctors, staffs and patients. Last but not the least, he shows that the prisoners in Guantanamo have better medical treatment than the common people in USA, and he ends getting free treatment to the Americans that participate along the documentary in Cuba.

[pinotnoir]

What you are referring to is called "queue-jump" within the NHS and is universally frowned upon by all NHS workers and is not practiced as far as I am aware.

Outlawing or banning private healthcare isn't democratic, improving the already high standard of the NHS to a level where using private healthcare would be pointless would be an admirable policy for any of our political parties (similarly, improving state education to an equally high standard would be an admirable objective- of the present mainstream parties only The Labour Party has within it's membership such socialist thinkers).