'Tell the USA your views on the NHS' poll results/discussion

alimack66

I can't link to pages, so here's a straight copy of Business insiders pages - your basic health care choices:

Everyone who is trashing Obama's healthcare plan should be required to answer the following multiple choice question: Pick A or B:
A. I don't want any changes to our healthcare system. I'm cool with the fact that 50 million Americans don't have coverage.
B. I agree that our system needs to be reformed, but I think there's a better option than the one Obama's proposing.
If your answer is B, pick from the following three options, described by Paul Krugman. (Krugman notes that "every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens"--except us. Which is why Obama's pressing for change).
Nationalized healthcare. "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false. Like every system, the National Health Service has problems, but over all it appears to provide quite good care while spending only about 40 percent as much per person as we do. By the way, our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also manages to combine quality care with low costs."
Nationalized health insurance. "The second route to universal coverage leaves the actual delivery of health care in private hands, but the government pays most of the bills. That’s how Canada and, in a more complex fashion, France do it. It’s also a system familiar to most Americans, since even those of us not yet on Medicare have parents and relatives who are. Again, you hear a lot of horror stories about such systems, most of them false. French health care is excellent. Canadians with chronic conditions are more satisfied with their system than their U.S. counterparts. And Medicare is highly popular, as evidenced by the tendency of town-hall protesters to demand that the government keep its hands off the program."
Private insurance with strict rules to make sure that everyone's covered. "Finally, the third route to universal coverage relies on private insurance companies, using a combination of regulation and subsidies to ensure that everyone is covered. Switzerland offers the clearest example: everyone is required to buy insurance, insurers can’t discriminate based on medical history or pre-existing conditions, and lower-income citizens get government help in paying for their policies."


Obama is essentially proposing that we move from our system to the Swiss system: Private insurance with rules that make sure that everyone's covered.
So which is it, Obamacare-trashers?
(A). The status quo, in which we remain the only wealthy country in the world in which basic healthcare isn't guaranteed, or
(B), one of the other options above?

happyinflorida

In USA if you are ill and you've got insurance you can choose who treats you and you get the full info what you can have first. If you need medication you have to buy it, possibly through your ins. but that means you get a choice and you get all the info on the pro's and con's of the medicine first.

Here you are just given a prescription.

I'm diabetic and on insulin. I do injections but in the USA practically all diabetics have an insulin pump - this closely monitors your blood sugar levels and gives you some insulin as and when needed. I can't get one of these and they are only available here if your diabetice is not responding to injections.

Interesting how much help diabetics in the USA get. I had to wait nearly 2 years between my appointments at the diabetic clinic at my local hospital!!! I would never be left that long in the USA - when I was younger I was seen every 6 months. So this is really going downhill here.

I am very unimpressed with our NHS and would much prefer to have the same system as they do in the USA as they get choice and far more advanced medicines and help than we do.

I know that with other medical conditions the NHS is exactly the same, so not just with me. It is not good and it desperately needs to change.

LydiaJ

The thing that made me feel the US system was unacceptable was when Morgan Spurlock (the guy who made the "supersize me" film) made a programme about living on the minimum wage. He and his girlfriend had a challenge to live for 30 days in Columbus Ohio, try to get minimum wage jobs, and live on what they earned. They found it tough, but they tried really hard, and they would have managed it, except that they both had some health problems, and ended up spending more than they could "afford" on healthcare. The sums they had to pay for quite basic consultations and treatments seemed eye-watering to me (from a British perspective). She needed antibiotics for a UTI and he needed something else - can't remember what, sorry. I certainly ended up feeling grateful for the NHS and taking it a lot less for granted than before I saw the show.

saveralot

The NHS had its faults, believe me I've seen many, but I'd prefer it to the pre-NHS days. My auntie is in her late 70s and knows of people who died because they couldn't afford to see their GP. As for people who say well it would be cheaper to go private in the long run, depends, if you need a transplant or major surgery it would cost you far more. I have (touch wood) had hardly anything wrong me with, but will gladly pay NI contributions to fund a system that treats all citizens.

W_s_n

I'm amazed at the 161 people who say that they would get rid of the NHS.

Crazy

geoff2

Many contributors to this thread are calling for insurance - as opposed to "healthcare" - as if that would magically change things. The NHS is an insurance system - a National Insurance system. And it works very well because everyone contributes. Some contributors will never need it but that's the whole point. It enables those that do need it to obtain care at no extra cost. I got my blood pressure checked today - just phoned my GP, and popped down, no charge. Going back for a blood test next week - no charge. What would that simple service cost in the USA?

jerez

tryingtoruletheworld wrote: »

I can't believe some of the debate they have had in the states, middle America seems to be terrified of losing out if people in poverty are given access to healthcare. I was astounded at one debate I saw the other day, I can't understand how anyone could refuse to even consider a way to provide medical treatment for all, in a supposedly rich, developed country which lets its most vulnerable people die, because they don't have the cash!

Am I stupid or something? I also cannot understand why this issue has caused such anger and fear among Americans? You'd think Obama was trying to ban guns or something.

Silicon_Valley_Librarian

Most people I know do not know of this survey and how well the national health works in the UK. Please, please, please, email anybody you know in the US, email any newspaper or news magazine in the US, and tell them how well it works. We are fighting an uphill battle against entrenched health industry interests, insurance companies, and conservative politicians who don't care about the welfare of Americans as a whole. Consequently, any input you can provide to Americans may help our President in getting a health program through that will work for the benefit of all the people in our country. Thanks for any help that you can give.

mrsdinozzo

Try working for the NHS!!! Twenty years ago - it was a joy to head to work of a morning - we all had one thing in common....we were there for the patients (not *clients* as they're now called :mad:) there were ups and downs of course - but the ups far outweighed the downs...then in came Quango's and Trusts along with a wave of faceless suits who would not know a patient if they tripped over one. Before their evolution, it was not unusual for the Chief Exec or the Director of Nursing to spend a day or two on the ward and learning what its really like at the coal face - staff and patients were allowed to voice their twopennorth and if something needed doing you knew that the PTB would bend over backwards to try and achieve it...and if they couldn't then you knew that they'd done their best...then in came Quangos and Trusts...with a plethora of faceless suits who would not know a patient if they tripped over them. Stuck in their ivory towers bickering over the request for new or even second hand equipment such as an ECG machine or drug pump...to be told no - sorry - can't afford it...yet the next thing you knew - theres a new chinless wonder being employed in charge of paperclips who's raking in a 6 figure sum of a salary...:mad:. Now its all down to budgets and quotas - I resigned one post when I was asked to *lose some names off the waiting list - pronto*...I'll be damned if I'm going to deny a patient a theatre slot!!! Faceless suits have ruined the NHS, morale is no more, no one seems to care - and its the patients who are suffering....

Sowilo_2

I have a colostomy. I get free pouches ( custom cut to fit me ), wipes, skin care items, disposal bags, all delivered to my door free. Free advice and care from a variety of sources. I change my pouch 2 -3 times a day. I choose which products I want to use and where to I get them from. All the Americans I have spoken to say insurance doesn't cover the pouches etc. Oh, and of course the consultations, surgery and after care cost me nothing. America, stick your health care system and mind your own business.