You don't want universal health care?

[LiberalFighter]

Source: Minnesota Post 7/22/09

Britain's National Health Service is paid for out of a social security tax. Services are free at the point of provision. No co-pay, no reimbursement. The budget last year was 90 billion pounds (about $148 billion). That makes the average cost per person about 1,500 pounds ($2,463).

The NHS is big — huge, in fact. With 1.5 million employees it is one of the largest employers in the world. Only China's People's Liberation Army, India's state railways and good old Wal-Mart employ more folks. Sixty percent of the NHS budget goes toward salaries.

The French system is run on a compulsory purchase of insurance through the workplace. The insurance cost is based on how much a worker earns. Low-income workers pay nothing. The average contribution per person is about $4,000. The government sets fees for services and negotiates the price of drugs with pharmaceutical companies.

Service is not free at the point of provision. But reimbursement for costs is swift and in the case of catastrophic illness all fees are waived. People are free to purchase supplementary insurance from private companies.

Read More

[Justyce]

1. $4000/yr per person in France???

So $1000/month for a family of three? Geez.

Of course Britain's sounds better, but a good friend of mine lives in Britain (she's from the U.S.) and said it's a nightmare, you wait months on end for an appointment, sometimes a couple of years, lower quality healthcare, etc.

I don't know what the answer is.

[LiberalFighter]

2. I doubt your friend's story is true.

The waiting may be to have a surgical procedure performed but not to get an appointment to see the doctor.

Wait Times.

The United States is one of eight OECD countries in which waiting times for elective surgery are reported to be low. Meanwhile, wait times are considered a serious health policy issue in 12 OECD countries. In these 12 countries, wait times of 1 to 1½ months are common for procedures such as invasive heart surgery, whereas wait times for procedures like hip or knee replacement cluster around five months. In a recent survey, a quarter to a third of respondents in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia reported waiting more than four months for a
non-emergency procedure, compared with only 5% of Americans.

Although the United States does not have long wait times for non-emergency surgical procedures, this does not appear to be the case for primary care doctor visits. In a survey of five OECD countries in 2004, U.S. respondents were the second-least able to make a same-day doctor’s appointment when sick and had the most difficulty getting care on nights and weekends. They were also the most likely to delay or forgo treatment because of cost.

[LiberalFighter]

3. Do you know what is the cost of your health insurance?

And I don't mean just your portion if you pay any premiums. The total cost would also include what your employer pays.

I know that if I had been paying 20 years ago it would had cost me about $750 a month as an individual. If we were part of a Single Payer Plan it would had cost me about $525 a month instead. Thankfully, my employer was paying 100%. Most families wouldn't have the type of coverage I had.

I asked a small business owner this week what he paid and his employees paid for their insurance. He paid about $350 and his employees paid about $450 a month for a family. He also stated that it wasn't the best coverage.

And do you really think we would use 100% of any other country's plan? Especially one that would cost more than what we pay now?

For a point of reference the national average for family coverage is $5,799 annually.

[a kennedy]

15. I'm paying $1580 a month for family coverage, and it's just my husband

and me.

[RandomKoolzip]

4. You have to wait in the U.S. too.

It's not as if you can just stroll into any random doctor's office and get gall bladder surgery the same day.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. I have a friend in the UK who was born with major disabilities

and she'd love to live in the US to be near friends, but she could never make it here, away from NHS that has given her outstanding and madly expensive care from the day she was born. She does not wait, and has very clearly been told that her coverage here would be of far lower quality if she transfered with the huge major corporation she works for.
I also know other Brits who live there primarily due to NHS coverage for themselves and their kids. I know poor artists there who get medical care well off people here postpone due to cost, and they get it as quickly as anyone here gets such procedures.
Your friend is full of crap, but if she is really not pleased, she is free to do what others do there, and use private care, simply by paying for it. She does not have to use NHS. So why does she, if it is so terrible? Why in fact, does she even live there, instead of here, if it is so awful? And if she must live there, why does she not carry the sort of coverage she wants, which she could, by writing a check?

[Justyce]

7. My friend is not "full of crap". What a thing to say about someone

you know nothing about. I'm simply telling you her first-hand experience and opinion. The only mitigating circumstance I can think of is that she does live in a large city. I remember how long it took her to get in to see a doctor and finally get her surgery, etc., so no, she's not "full of crap". I can't believe how rude people are becoming on this board.

As I said, I don't know what the ideal healthcare answer would be. I'm not attacking any certain system, just trying to have a discussion about the different options....

[Bluenorthwest]

14. Well having listened to false information

saying that my friend would have been left to die by the NHS leaves me a bit testy when I hear stories that sound patently false, I know dozens of people in the UK. of all sorts of economic means and physical conditions. I noted right off that we are discussing 'her surgery' in a rather oddly nonspecific way. I noted you talking about wait times that I have never heard of.

When asked questions, you pretend offense. Rather than answer them. Note that it is possible to both take offense and reply to asked questions, and that some say rolling over direct questions is in itself a very rude thing, on a board that exists only to discuss. So you could clutch your pearls as well as be responsive, if you wanted to. But you chose not to.

[Justyce]

16. After reading your rude replies and basically being called

a liar by you for no particular reason, yes I take offense, and no I don't care to answer your questions or discuss anything with you any further. Have a nice day.

[City Lights]

9. A couple of years?

Sorry, I'm not buying what you're selling.

I don't doubt that your friend has to wait (we wait here, too), I just find it difficult to believe it's a couple of years for an appointment.

[Justyce]

10. She waited a couple of years for

her surgery. And I'm not 'selling' anything. Jesus Christ... why is everyone so paranoid around here these days?

[City Lights]

11. Thanks for clarifying that you meant for surgery.

Your post says a couple of years when you were talking about appointments...you wait months on end for an appointment, sometimes a couple of years.

If you want people to understand the point you're trying to make, you might want to be a bit more clear from the start. Waiting a couple of years for an appointment doesn't seem believable, does it?

[Justyce]

13. Whatever. I stated one friend's personal experience

with Britain's healthcare, and stated I don't know what our healthcare answer is. I wasn't arguing. I wasn't even taking a position on anything, just participating in a discussion, which hardly seems worth it around here these days.

[JuniperLea]

19. Boob job?

Or appendectomy? There's a big difference. Was the delay life-threatening?

[JuniperLea]

17. I think your friend is telling you a whopper...

My British friends think we're all crazy over here for allowing such a stupid health care INDUSTRY to take care of something so important as our health. I had this discussion just last week. You might wait a couple of years for a boob job, or a face lift, but actual health issues are attended to right away, by highly qualified, QUALITY physicians in very highly rated hospitals. And when I compare financial and tax notes with my friends, I find I'm paying far more for far less than what they get.

[TxRider]

18. It depends

In Britain it depends on where you live. It's not a centralized system.

Google "NHS postal code lottery"...

No health care system is perfect. All systems have good and bad.

We will get universal health care reform eventually one way or another.

But with the unhealthy American life style, obesity issues etc. it likely will be more expensive than Canada and Europe.

[Hutzpa]

5. I would like to know your

opinion on this article because I have read it and have an opinion, but since
you posted it I know you have something to say about it.....so you first.

[ipaint]

8. Health insurance companies in france are non-profit and

regulated by the government. They are not at all like our for profit vultures.

"All citizens and legal foreign residents of France are covered by one of these mandatory programs, which continue to be funded by worker participation. However, since 1945, a number of major changes have been introduced. Firstly, the different health-care funds (there are five : General, Independent, Agricultural, Student, Public Servants) now all reimburse at the same rate. Secondly, since 2000, the government now provides health care to those who are not covered by a mandatory regime (those who have never worked and who are not students, meaning the very rich or the very poor). This regime, unlike the worker-financed ones, is financed via general taxation and reimburses at a higher rate than the profession-based system for those who cannot afford to make up the difference. Finally, to counter the rise in health-care costs, the government has installed two plans, (in 2004 and 2006), which require insured people to declare a referring doctor in order to be fully reimbursed for specalist visits, and which installed a mandatory co-pay of 1 € (about $1.45) for a doctor visit, 0,50 € (about 80 ¢) for each box of medicine prescribed, and a fee of 16-18 € ($20-25) per day for hospital stays and for expensive procedures.
An important element of the French insurance system is solidarity : the more ill a person becomes, the less they pay. This means that for people with serious or chronic illnesses, the insurance system reimburses them 100 % of expenses, and waives their co-pay charges.
Finally, for fees that the mandatory system does not cover, there is a large range of private complementary insurance plans available. The market for these programs is very competitive, and often subsidised by the employer, which means that premiums are usually modest. 85% of French people benefit from complementary private health insurance.<9><10>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_in_France

[jeanpalmer]

12. If a person were serious about health care reform

wouldn't he show some curiosity about UK's system. "How do these people get health care that people seem to be happy with for $2400 a year?" Maybe he would send some analysts and policymakers over there to see how their system works and do an analysis and evaluation of it.

This is what bothers me about Obama. He's not giving us a discussion about health care reform because he is not seriously considering all the alternatives. Instead he's straightjacketing us into an insurance monstrosity that is highly complex, untested, nobody knows if it will work and at what cost. He doesn't even have a plan. He's just throwing it out there so Congress can come up with something that will be accepted as "healthcare reform." and he can have his signing ceremony and "save his presidency."

A very narrow approach and a disservice to our country.