Canadians and Europeans, what do you think of your national health care ?

by RubaDub 46 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  snare&racket

  As an ED doctor in the uk NHS I can honestly say that in 11 years of NHS experience, working as a doctor in A&E, ITU, Surgery and Medicine, I have seen only one 'health tourist'. I have seen and treated thousands of patients. It simply isn't true that foreigners are coming to the UK to use our healthcare. The data shows that foreigners visiting the UK are afraid to use the NHS, not really believing it's free at the point of entry.

  Jeremy Hunt (previous health minister) set up a pilot scheme to assess likely health visitors and seek to claim costs back if liable. It found so few foreign health tourists, they abandoned the pilot. For every suspected 180 'health tourists' they found just one patient liable for costs. It was more expensive looking for them than finding the one who hadn't paid.

  The NHS isn't perfect, but it keeps coming first in international healthcare tables. The biggest issue is waiting times and access because we need more doctors. It costs about £100,000 to train to become a doctor in student fees etc yet wages start at just £22,000 a year and the workload and rota's are heavy. Christmas, Birthdays, Weddings, Holidays... you'd be lucky to see some of them every year. The NHS pay doesn't stand up to business or even the average jobs anymore and the new student fees have put a huge nail in the coffin for medical student uptake.

  I am from a non-academic family in a poor area, I appreciate my earnings but supermarkets are frankly paying more than the NHS, the staffing issue is not going to get better. Ironically doctors still want to be doctors despite the 12 years of training and £100,000 costs, but fewer high school achievers are willing to ignore the the lucrative enticement of economics/finance careers.
• 

  Theonlyoneleft

  My ex sister in law works in a nhs hospital near a very busy airport. She has mentioned that they see many patients that come straight from the airport into the hospital to see a doctor.

  My brother has worked in Heathrow airport and has spoken of the same similar cases.

  i definitely agree that the NHS does a brilliant job as it is, but just imagine how better job could be if we had the needed numbers of staff.

  A family member was working in a certain hospital’s ITU a few years ago but left the uk to “serve where the need is great”. She was trained in her country but came to work here.

  The people that I know from Europe (many) don’t trust the national health service as they see it as “free”. They fly home, pay to see a doctor and do whatever they need there, that also includes dental services, It’s not that expensive for them and they are seen to their problem faster than visiting the nhs in the uk. Some don’t have that option, but the ones that do prefer to go, see a doctor there and buy the similar medication that they would probably get prescribed here.
• 

  Anony Mous

  As an expat from a European country myself, I like the US health care system a LOT better. First of all, I'm no longer paying 50% of our income to health care and then still have to pay into private health insurance just to get additional coverage. Yes, we still pay for health insurance after the government 'pays for it'

  But when I came here, my personal healthcare improved so much. Before, I had to go to a hospital and wait for hours just to see a specialist, here I got a grown in toenail surgery for less than $1000 without any wait time and no insurance.

  Compared to Europe, insurance is dirt cheap, once you take the actual cost of care from your taxes into account, Europe is paying at least half as much in personal health insurance. Look at this graph: https://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/06/07/business/07economist-bartlett2rev2/07economist-bartlett2rev2-blog480.jpg
  

  Dentists are amazing too, ever wonder why in the UK (and the rest of Europe) dental care is so bad? We see dentists once every 2 years and cleanings are considered 'cosmetic' and cost extra unless you have a private insurance.

  But you don't have to believe me, look at outcome statistics, the US has the lowest mortality numbers for major diseases like cancer by like 4x, maternal mortality is the lowest by orders of magnitude and

  Some examples from my own life:

  When I was a child, I had to go from the school to a hospital, the janitor had to drive me to the hospital in a bus while I was heavily bleeding because the ambulance didn't deem someone who could still walk as a case for the ambulance to handle.

  I know several people that had to appear in front of government panels to have their health care options decided, an appointment with those panels can take upwards of 9-18 months AFTER your primary care doctor decides to pass you on for some major surgery or disability. You can't get unemployment because you're "too sick" for one government doctor but can't go on disability because you're "not sick enough" according to another government doctor, if you are forced to work, you automatically lose both benefits and your disability case. Death panels are a necessary thing in socialist healthcare countries.

  My brother, as a child, went to the emergency department for pediatric care with a compression injury (blood flow cut off, skin turning colors and at risk for necrosis). He was turned away from one hospital after 4 hours wait because after my parents discussed with the doctors (we were still JW's) about the blood transfusion issue, the hospital administration simply told us they didn't have sufficient funding for a no-blood surgery (which at that point, the government demanded hospitals follow all religious objections, regardless of the cost), and then we'd have to drive ourselves to another private hospital which took 2 more hours to see a doctor.
• 

  waton

  maternal mortality is the lowest by orders of magnitude

  A M. If you are talking about the USA here, that is not true, it might beat Bang-la desh, but nit countries with 150 year old public systems like in central Europe.

  For the uninsured, younger middle income earner, with some equity, the US can be a devastating place to be sick in.
  
  
• 

  Anony Mous

  If you're a middle income earner in the US there is no excuse not to get health insurance. If you make less than 150% of the "poverty line" (which comes to ~36k/y) you qualify for Medicaid and emergency rooms are free by law.

  My maternity rates were based on a graph from UNICEF that compared North America to Europe (which includes Eastern Europe where it is not great) The problem with some of these graphs is that the number is so low the EU stopped reporting altogether in official death stats, some since 1995.
• 

  Listener

  My husband and I visited the UK four years ago as tourists from Australia.
  
  I needed to see a Doctor and went to a local clinic in London. What a shocker, there were one or two people abusing staff and Doctors. It was a very unpleasant place.
  
  I was told there was absolutely no way they could give me an appointment, either that day or within the next few weeks. My only choice was to go to a public hospital emergency department so we did.
  
  I had travel insurance but was told that due to the reciprocal arrangement there would be no cost unless I was hospitalized and then expected to use my travel insurance (even though the reciprocal arrangement provides free medical care as an inpatient which I didn't know at the time). This reciprocal arrangement exists between the UK and several countries and is constantly changing.
  
  I was very impressed with the hospital, staff and treatment. The initial general examination was incredibly thorough, more so than we receive here in Australia. Five scripts were filled out, at no cost, at the hospital as the Doctor said it was the easiest way to see me through until I returned to Australia.
  
  Being a reciprocal arrangement means that UK residents can receive necessary medicare treatment when they visit Australia and some other Countries.
  
  
  
• 

  waton

  Listener, that sounds like paradise, Reciprocal arrangements between commonwealth countries, that barely exists between Canadian provinces. and none of the Canadian public health scheme is covering you in the US, You loose your provincial coverage if you leave Canada for k mote than 6 mont.(there is 7 month of snow, and 7 month of mosquitos in same parts, the 14 month year).What I meant there is a middle field of victims in the US. Illigals are covered, so are seniors, but god help the unprepared hard working stiffs with good credit

  Visiting the Uk seems like paradise, visiting the Us like doom.

  ( I feel from my low roof in Florida , cost $ 5000.- without any treatment)
• 

  Simon

  The UK health system certainly isn't free, you pay a lot in taxes and national insurance contributions to cover it.

  I think there should be some cost to using it at the point of delivery as what seems to happen is that responsible, professional people who are paying the most tend to use it the least, but the feckless rabble who drink and fight in the street are in A&E every other night and of course pay nothing, because they are on benefits.

  I'm always amazed, given the publicity of medical staff being overworked, at how many people are just stood around chatting whenever I've visited a hospital. I think public sector and private sector employees have different scales for "busy" (but in common is probably the fact that a select few do most of the work).
• 

  Half banana

  UK perspective: of course medical care is not free, we all pay for it over our working lives. However the actual cost in Britain is half of what people are charged in the USA for a similar service. In terms of national expenditure healthcare is 17.2% of GDP in USA compared to 9.7% GDP UK, annual per capita cost: USA $9,825 - UK $3730 (pound equivalent).

  The great advantage here is that everyone under the NHS umbrella, however poor, has no anxiety about the cost of being ill or needing surgery.

  For all of the administrative headaches in running such a large system, the work load on the staff and the natural grumbles of the users, I reckon the NHS is a boon of civilisation.
• 

  DesirousOfChange

  It costs about £100,000 to train to become a doctor in student fees etc yet wages start at just £22,000 a year

  Education to go into the healthcare field is expensive here (US) as well. Nursing school can be as inexpensive as $25000 or more than $100,000 (depending on public/private schools). Pharmacy school is well over $100,000. And, a medical student probably spends (or his parents or a scholarship does) $200,000.

  However, a nurse easily earns $60,000.

  A nurse practitioner (extra schooling beyond nursing) and is the usual "GP" or "primary care" person now earns over $150,000.
  

  A pharmacist (BTW a pharmacist, even a "Doctor of Pharmacy", cannot prescribe drugs here in the US -- only a physician or nurse practitioner can write a prescription) earns well over $100,000.

  But a physician earns easily $250,000 to million$ if they are the top of their field (ie, cardiac surgeon) at a teaching/research hospital.