What can you tell us Yanks about Healthcare in the UK

Hadn't seen clintsmoker's response until now. A stronger man that I would let sleeping dogs lie, but fuck it:

Maybe you feel safe because you have a professional army defending you.

From whom exactly? Are we talking about the terrorist groups abroad that are killing our soldiers (and their own) with weapons manufactured by BAE? Or the oil rich Middle East states that have fleets of RAF fighter jet?

I wonder how those got there?

Or are you referring to the numerous armies that are constantly trying to invade?

I don't know about you, but I can't recall the last time I saw a uniformed member of the armed forces arresting a domestic terrorist.

but you are right we are digressing.

I concur. Enough with global politics:

As it happens the US system of health is better than ours and not restricted to rationing.

Where has this notion of rationing come from? Are you confusing 'better healthcare' with 'demanding absurd numbers of inconsequential tests and pointless, risky surgery in order to satisfy one's baseless hypochondria, despite the better advice of one's highly trained clinicians'?

I think you might be. As countless people have attested in this thread, when something is seriously amiss, you will, more often than not, get the works.

I see you have ignored my second post above with the peanut allergy anecdote. Which leads me to this:

The American mission is to maximise life regardless of cost.

This is unbelievable bullshit. The American insurance companies' collective mission is to maximise profit, health of their clients be damned.

When has a for-profit company EVER operated without regard to cost?

Have you just ignored the multiple posts from users of the American healthcare system in this thread? Or is this just wilful ignorance?

An American consumer watchdog has highlighted the distasteful depths to which insurance companies plunge in order to keep those shareholders happy.

To pull a few choice conditions and occupations that Blue-Shield California and PacifiCare (a subsidiary of United Health Group, one of the largest health insurance companies in the US) refuse to cover:

• Air Traffic Controllers
  
• Policemen
  
• Firefighters
  
• Construction Workers
  
• Acne
  
• Asthma
  
• Arthritis
  
• Sickle Cell Anaemia
  
  
  

I would now like to point you to your previous statement:

Also absolutely no citizen is denied healthcare in the states (it is illegal to refuse treatment in all 50 states).

Just like here no?

But don't the people who work in the above listed jobs, and the people who suffer from the above listed conditions count as citizens?

I'm fairly sure they do here.

Or are you referring to the fact that, yes, in America, if you are uninsured and you break your arm, you can turn up at A&E, wait half a day, and be treated, but you will then have to fork out $38,000 retrospectively for the privilege?

Someone posted this very story on the ***first page.

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Does that sound fair to you? Does that sound like a system that is maximising life? Or does that sound like a system where a large portion of the population will probably never set foot in a hospital for fear of being bankrupted? This is a country where at least 30 million people are uninsured, with many tens of millions more underinsured for any number of life threatening conditions. It is a system that kicks people off on technicalities and paperwork irregularities - something that would never happen with the NHS - and that, most of the time, charges extra if you dare fall pregnant.

A country where your healthcare policy can **expire. **That doesn't sound too life-affirming to me.

Culturally they are able to understand that you are born and it is up to you to make what you can of your life.

If you want the best healthcare , buy the best insurance and that might involve working hard and achieving rather than relying on richer members of society paying for you.

Again I am astounded. Never did I realise that Air Traffic Controllers, Policemen and Asthma suffers alike were not upstanding, contributing members of society, but lazy, scrounging underachievers.

Of course, no one can be born with a pre-existing condition and thus be denied treatment by just about every healthcare provider in the country, just like no one can be born into poverty, live in deprivation, drop out of school at 16, not to fuck around doing drugs, but to work a minimum wage job, because their single mother is so crippled by untreated, unmanageable arthritis that she can barely walk, let alone provide for a family. Of course that can't happen with a private healthcare system, because the insurance companies just want to help you get better.

I am glad that you were born priviliged enough that your parents had no use for state funded hospital beds, school desks, midwives and teachers. If only we all could share such a leg-up. Or did richer members of society pay for your schooling?

The NHS is trying to make maximum cost effective use of the resources at it's disposal.

Which sounds like a very responsible government body to me. If people were happy to pay more tax, we'd have even more resources and even better healthcare.

Economically Americans have a problem. Healthcare spending is growing faster than GDP. In anyones book that simply spells trouble.

Yes - stats, shall we have a look? This is a fairly interesting page.

Life Expectancy:

UK 79.1
US 78.1
**
Infant Mortality
**
UK 4.8
US 6.7

** Per Capita Expenditure on Healthcare**

UK 2,992
US 7,290

** % Government revenue spent on Healthcare**

UK 15.8
US 18.5

I'll let you look at the rest yourself. But for** less **money per head, and less money spent by the government, we have **longer **life expectancy, fewer children dying and every citizen in this country is covered.

I don't hear too many Americans protesting about the state of their healthcare system considering it is supposed to be so appalling according to the left wing in this country.

You are obviously not listening then. I'm fairly sure they just elected a famously black* centre-lefter who had repeatedly promised healthcare reform during a very long, very public election campaign.

In the UK we need some new ideas because the NHS can't remain sacrosanct forever. It's expensive and it doesn't deliver the best healthcare.

Wrong. It is much cheaper, per capita, and as a percentage of government spending and it delivers healthcare to anyone who needs it whenever they do.

Yes it needs some reform - I've posted extensively on this issue.

More and more people are getting tired of paying for people who can't be bothered (yep you read that correctly) to work or take responsibility for their health.

Are we including the middle classes here? Or just the poor people? Because I, for one, would be happy if my taxes were not used to fund physiotherapy treatment for some foolish over-40 year old's rugby/tennis/skiing/fixed gear related injury ever again.**

Not to mention all those anti-depressants that bored middle-class housewives disproportionately gobble up between shopping trips and lunches.***

Or anyone involved in a car-to-car crash.

But perhaps I'll endure it and cease to base my political opinions on such absurd generalisations.

I know I will not change your mind, but ultimately, this entire debate comes down to the dilemma I posed in my previous post dated 21st August.

Which world sounds better?

The one where money talks, or the one where life is the priority?

Because for all its flaws - and I myself have listed many - we already have the second world in our country.

Why you'd want to replace that, I will never understand.

• racist.
  
  

** I do not actually hold this opinion.

*** Or this one.