Public sector pay freeze/Inflation calculation

antrobus

economic wrote: »

This is so true. I have had to use the services of my GPs recently and i have come to the same conclusion.

Well I went to see a GP last year, Not because I felt ill, but because the boss insisted. Result, GP diagnosed pneumonia and blue lighted me to hospital. He was right, severe pneumonia. Ten days room and board. And it stuffed me, 'cos I got other things wrong with me. But over it now.

Now he's a smart GP. There are a lot of good GPs at my group practice. But there are one or two dufuses. I try and avoid them.

P.S. I quite like the NHS. They try and keep me alive for some reason.:)

antrobus

economic wrote: »

People think private healthcare is risky and that the poor will suffer from it. ....

Do they? I'd say that most people regard private healthcare as being the same as NHS healthcare only with (sometimes) shorter waiting lists, better food, and a bill at that end of it all.

economic wrote: »

...
In reality we all suffer from socialized healthcare in that the vast majority of us receive sub par healthcare service at the expense of everyone getting healthcare. it shouldn't be this way.

It isn't that way. The availability of healthcare is not limited in the same way as the availability of Ford F150s isn't limited. All you need is money.

economic wrote: »

...
specially as much of the poor are immigrants who haven't contributed much to this economy both personally and through their ancestors.

!!!!!!? My ancestors? What's that got to do with the price of fish?

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

If it's possible to earn $300k being a doctor, a lot of smart people will want to do it, because they'd make that whatever they did, and it's more worthwhile than being, say, an accountancy partner on the same money.

If it's only possible to earn $100k doing it, then it will fail to attract people who could be earning $300k, who will go off and become accountancy partners. Their places will be taken up mainly by people who wouldn't expect to make more than $100k anyway, and who choose to make their $100k being a doctor because it's the same money as but more worthwhile than being an estate agent or a taxi driver.

So, while cheap, the inexorable conclusion about our doctors is that they are roughly as smart as estate agents and taxi drivers.

If I ever need my piles shrunk or my gonads scanned, I'll have it done in America.

How much movement is there from other professions to doctors later on in life?

We train only A students and then only 1/4th of those A students that applied are given the chance so we pick mostly the top 1/4th of the A grade students to become doctors

So its unreasonable to say our doctors are second grade
They are first grade and thanks to the NHS their earn half of what they otherwise might be able to charge us.

Nick_C

I popped into my GPs a little over a year ago to try to get an appointment for a minor problem. I got an appointment two hours later. I was at the hospital that afternoon for blood tests, and I saw a specialist two weeks later.

Earlier this year, my brother punctured a cyst on his hand to drain it. It got infected. He went to his GP. He was sent straight to hospital where he was admitted and kept in for two nights for observation in case of sepsis.

My 92 year old uncle is about to go into hospital to have a heart valve replacement! ( A transcatheter aortic valve implantation that avoids the need for a general anaesthetic).

I hear horror stories on the news about the NHS but my personal experience, and those of friends and family, have all been excellent.

GreatApe

westernpromise wrote: »

Socialised healthcare = state monopsony. When the state is the sole buyer of all labour everyone becomes poor, as in the USSR. It's just a question how far towards universal poverty we all want to go.

It isn't the state dictating doctors wages too low. Our doctors are paid reasonable wages.

Its that in the USA the doctors have rigged the system grossly in their favor. Even Milton Friedman complained and pointed out how rigged the medical profession is.

So it isn't free markets vs NHS
It is rigged pretend free market vs NHS

In that case the NHS works better.
Of course if we could have a totally free market in healthcare that would probably be beat but I don't think its possible to have total free market healthcare. Doctors are too smart and too respected and will keep supply down to push wages up.

If your talking about taxi drivers
American doctors are like the black cab taxi drivers
Limit numbers and competition to earn 3-5x what the free market taxi driver earn.

Nick_C

economic wrote: »

People think private healthcare is risky...

A couple of risks with private healthcare in the UK.

1) if you become seriously ill in a private hospital, they are unlikely to have the expertise or facilities to look after you, and you are likely to be transferred to the nearest NHS hospital.

2) private health insurance becomes unaffordable as you get older, just when you are most likely to need it. I have a couple of friends who paid into BUPA for years, only to see their premiums rocket as they got older; to £500 a month in one case. Even in the US, the elderly get medicare.

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

This is so true. I have had to use the services of my GPs recently and i have come to the same conclusion.

That is unfair
They are all A grade students and in good subjects.

However I will grant that people age at different rates.
I'm not as quick or as smart as I was 10 years ago and I find I can not concentrate as intensely or as long as I could do ten years ago so maybe you just had a degraded GP (or perhaps one that didn't care too much)

GreatApe

economic wrote: »

People think private healthcare is risky and that the poor will suffer from it. In reality we all suffer from socialized healthcare in that the vast majority of us receive sub par healthcare service at the expense of everyone getting healthcare. it shouldn't be this way. specially as much of the poor are immigrants who haven't contributed much to this economy both personally and through their ancestors.

Best to just concentrate on tech we are not going to change the NHS faster than tech is going to change healthcare

Hopefully over the next 20-40 years robots will start doing operations and tending to the sick and software will do diagnoses. That way we can have very cheap high quality healthcare with far fewer nurses and doctors

Nick_C

GreatApe wrote: »

Best to just concentrate on tech we are not going to change the NHS faster than tech is going to change healthcare

Hopefully over the next 20-40 years robots will start doing operations and tending to the sick and software will do diagnoses. That way we can have very cheap high quality healthcare with far fewer nurses and doctors

Its happening already. You press a button and a holographic doctor appears stating "please state the nature of the medical emergency" and performs the most brilliant surgery. I've seen it on TV. I'm sure we'll be seeing it in our local hospitals any day now, and all our problems will be solved.

JasonLong33

Google a time value of money calculator and run your numbers through there. Many are available for free.