not NICE
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In the UK, healthcare is free at the point of delivery. This delivery point could be your local GP, your local hospital or a clinic. If you have children, unlike in the United States where everything has to be paid, there is no costs at all including dental, prescription drugs and eye care, the same is true if you are in receipt of some means tested benefit such as Old Age Pension or Jobseekers' Allowance (that's Unemployment Pay). If you are working, you are entitled to prescription drugs at a set price per drug irrespective of the actual cost of the drug and your dental and eye care requirements are part-subsidised. So although free at the point of delivery, this is paid for by general taxation. Everybody makes a small contribution that benefits the whole. Doctors and hospitals do have catchment areas but you have the right to pick and choose where the delivery point is. And in socialized healthcare systems sometimes there could be waiting lists in order to get a particular treatment such as hip replacement operations. Your local hospital could indeed have a waiting list for that particular operation, but with an internal market, you could demand that treatment at another hospital where waiting times are not as great as local. You even have the right to have this treatment in a European hospital such as that operates in France. Because of the way that UK healthcare functions, NICE have statutory duties to report recommendations in respect of treatments and drugs. But they do not hold the purse strings. That means local hospitals are free to choose what treatments they specialize in and thus free to choose what financial costs are appropriate for them for the provision of treatment. This does not mean that local hospitals have a bottomless pit of money. Quite the reverse. There is a budget they need to keep to but how they spend that budget is their business. Aside from above, have a look at some back issues of Microsoft's Architecture Journal for articles to do with the provision of healthcare - some as quite interesting.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
your dental and eye care requirements are part-subsidised.
Ever tried finding an NHS dentist who will take you on recently?
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Richard A. Abbott wrote:
your dental and eye care requirements are part-subsidised.
Ever tried finding an NHS dentist who will take you on recently?
Actually, yes! And successfully done too, without any problems whatsoever. I acknowledge that NHS Dental services are something of a joke. But if you are in need of an NHS Emergency Dentist, call 0845 6003246 and you will be advised of local facilities.
Last modified: 4mins after originally posted --
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Actually, yes! And successfully done too, without any problems whatsoever. I acknowledge that NHS Dental services are something of a joke. But if you are in need of an NHS Emergency Dentist, call 0845 6003246 and you will be advised of local facilities.
Last modified: 4mins after originally posted --
Well done! I gave up and now pay through the nose for every check-up. Spending half an hour with the rather nice hygienist almost makes it worthwhile. Almost.
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Oakman wrote:
Medicare, it would seem logical that accepting it would mean that one was accepting the right to have it rationed on a cost/benefit basis, and maybe that's all that's needed.
If you are aware that this is the case, many are not. I would like an option to opt out of medicare or have private insurance supplement. Which I think is the case right now.
Oakman wrote:
I can tell you that I have signed a living will stating that I do not wish to have heroic measures used to prolong my life unless there is every reason to expect that I can be restored to full health within a reasonable length of time. My sister, who has my power of attorney, knows and understands and has sworn to follow my wishes.
You are in control, you know your options, can't argue with that. My point is that YOU ARE IN CONTROL not a government official.
MrPlankton
The Second Amendment, the Reset Button on the ConstitutionOnly with the health insurance approval. Unless you are paying cash for your treatment you are still NOT IN CONTROL. Its either for profit insurance, or bureaucratic rationing. But, unless you pay cash in full, you are NEVER in control.
This statement is false
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MrPlankton wrote:
I am asking questions, you are interpreting it as an attack, and are taking it personally, which is not my intent.
I'm sorry, but that is not true. You're not asking questions, you're making false assumptions.
MrPlankton wrote:
How so? Private insurance? How does this work?
There are private hospitals and there is private insurance. Also, when I go to a doctor, I can choose to go to one that charges the medicare fee, or choose a doctor who charges more and I pay the gap. I go to a GP based solely on his being a good doctor, he does not live near me, and it costs me $20 odd every time I go, the rest is covered. The sort of care I paid $500 for in the US is a few steps below the sort of care I'd expect at a free doctor locally.
MrPlankton wrote:
It is the US drug companies who are making innovations into new drugs, I am not aware of any socialist health care systems that are innovating like the US is.
Well, most of this is BS. For every innovation there's 20 slight changes that doesn't make a drug more effective, to extend a patent and keep prices high. However, the dichotomy you present is an ignorant one. Where do you think the drugs come from that are used by British patients ? Oh, right - drug companies. Drug companies position is not changed in any way by a 'socialist' health system.
MrPlankton wrote:
I deny it.
Then you must be blind. $500 for a flu, and a missed diagnosis at that ? Drugs advertised on TV ? The system is geared to fleece people, not make them well.
MrPlankton wrote:
Ok. Not an issue.
I've at least had health care in two of the countries being discussed. Have you ?
MrPlankton wrote:
But docs score in school on the bell curve just like programmers, some are not so good, some are average, some are exceptional.
No doubt. However, the core issue in my mind was that I got a minute or two with a doctor, I spent an hour in there, and about 12 minutes of contact in that time, most of it with different nurses.
MrPlankton wrote:
Does socialized medicine fix this?
It fixes the bit where crappy care cost me $500. It doesn't take away m
Christian Graus wrote:
but if I was poor, I would not have been able to choose a doctor at all
It is more the case that if you were poor you wouldn't have to pay for any doctor you choose.
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
MrPlankton wrote:
What age cutoff do you suggest? Do you want to participate in the decision of your health care you shall recieve or do you want your government to decide for you?
Because I can identify a problem, does not mean that I can provide a good solution. In the immediate case of Medicare, it would seem logical that accepting it would mean that one was accepting the right to have it rationed on a cost/benefit basis, and maybe that's all that's needed. I can tell you that I have signed a living will stating that I do not wish to have heroic measures used to prolong my life unless there is every reason to expect that I can be restored to full health within a reasonable length of time. My sister, who has my power of attorney, knows and understands and has sworn to follow my wishes.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.
Oakman wrote:
My sister, who has my power of attorney
You may come to regret tearing off her limbs for an iPhone. :~
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
Think inside the box! ProActive Secure Systems
I'm on-line therefore I am. JimmyRopes -
Stan Shannon wrote:
because seeing some soulless, uncaring bureaucrat would just make all the differenc
Why would you see a bureaucrat instead of a doctor ? How could any government employee be more soulless than your insurance company ?
Stan Shannon wrote:
But, hey, at least no one would be earning a profit.
Plenty of people turn a profit working in the health field in the UK and here in Australia.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
Christian Graus wrote:
Why would you see a bureaucrat instead of a doctor ?
Because the doctor would be a bureaucrat. Thats what people who work for the government are called.
Christian Graus wrote:
Plenty of people turn a profit working in the health field in the UK and here in Australia.
How?
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Stan Shannon wrote:
sure, because seeing some soulless, uncaring bureaucrat would just make all the difference.
Do I take it you are happy to be "experimented" upon with medical people using potentially unsafe, untested and unsound practices/procedures/drugs. No doubt in government bodies some bureaucrats exists, but those making the decision are highly qualified professionals operating within a certain field of specialty. They are far better qualified than your local GP, or for that matter, your insurance company.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
Do I take it you are happy to be "experimented" upon with medical people using potentially unsafe, untested and unsound practices/procedures/drugs.
I would be far more comfortable with that responsibility being in the hands of someone who could actually be fired for incompetence than in the hands of a government employee.
Richard A. Abbott wrote:
No doubt in government bodies some bureaucrats exists, but those making the decision are highly qualified professionals operating within a certain field of specialty. They are far better qualified than your local GP, or for that matter, your insurance company.
No, they aren't.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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I'm sorry, I'm not upset, I'm just astounded at the lack of any sort of common sense or reason in anything you have to say. I find that talking to people in the US who oppose any sort of health care that doesn't let the poor die, tend to live in a fantasy land with regards to the health system that I live under, and refuse to accept anything I say from personal experience as having equal or better weight to your various fantasies. Just like your owning a gun has bugger all to do with the likelyhood of your government becoming more corrupt or not.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista.
Christian Graus wrote:
doesn't let the poor d
Far more poor will die under your plan, than under a free market health care systm.
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
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Christian Graus wrote:
can't possibly be as bad as the hideously corrupt system in the US that is geared only to profit,
yeah, it can.
Christian Graus wrote:
with the result that, for example, a pathetic number of people are on anti depression medicine without ever seeing a mental health professional, and the stuff is advertised on TV incessantly.
sure, because seeing some soulless, uncaring bureaucrat would just make all the difference. But, hey, at least no one would be earning a profit. :rolleyes:
Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.
Stan Shannon wrote:
because seeing some soulless, uncaring bureaucrat would just make all the difference
GPs are self-employed practitioners, who mix private practice with contracted work from the NHS. Over the years, my family and I have been treated by 12 different NHS GPs around the UK, none of them were soulless, uncaring, or bureaucratic (even the two that I did not like).
Bob Emmett