I want the honest truth on this.

[Insanum]

Right-O, Tally ho![/B].

1on't know, I'm English.
2:The main problems are people in certain areas being denied treatment, for no decernible reason.
3:It seems rather unfair to those who cannot afford health insurance.
4:In England? Not unless your parents said so. You'd even make the news and get tons of support.

Or course, this is only what I've been told, so don't quote me on this.

Fixed.

Pretty much this, The NHS is known for long waiting lists for organ transplants, but when it comes to Premature babies we have specialized hospitals & some of the best doctors in the world (from all over the world too i might add)

 

[Lullabye]

Canada's health care is kinda communist. But its very very good. Yes our doctors are overpaid but it comes from our tax, so who cares? I mean, al least our tax money is being used to save lives. And I think your Father is not a caring person if he wont pay for a complete stranger to live. See, here in Canada, we tend to do things case by case. So if there is a known drug dealer with a cold waiting for an hour and suddenly a nice mother of 3 runs in missing an arm and bleeding heavily, guess which one gets the care first? Yes, the moher because our doctors are not quite as greedy or corrupt as America's. We actually kinda care. Thats why our health system works so well. the only thing to complain about is if you live in a big city, cause then you have to wait a LOOOOOOOOOONNGGGG time unles you're dying.
My step dad also wants to move to america because he thinks everything there is better. BUt he makes alot of money and is greedy so he thinks, "If I have the money shouldnt I get the treatment?"where as canada thinks "the little dying boy needs the treatment and you're an asshole, so we'll see if we have any *organs* left for you later."

 

[Lullabye]

I think you should get healthcare based on your intelligence, I dunno how it would work but stupid peoples shouldn't get as much health stuff as us smart peoples do, it's jsut stoopid!!!

so a baby should just be left to rot?...not cool man.....

 

[Schern]

I'm intrigued where people are getting all these statistics about survivability rates... When was the last time you saw a Doctor sitting down and working out the probability that someone would survive a procedure (particularly in an emergency such as following a road traffic accident or a complicated birth) before going ahead with doing everything in their power to make the person better? Statistics are for people who have time on their hands!

 

[cathou]

I'm intrigued where people are getting all these statistics about survivability rates... When was the last time you saw a Doctor sitting down and working out the probability that someone would survive a procedure (particularly in an emergency such as following a road traffic accident or a complicated birth) before going ahead with doing everything in their power to make the person better? Statistics are for people who have time on their hands!

i can happen, but only in one case. If you have a huge accident, with more victims than emergency crew to save them, They assign priority to the victims.

Green : the victim can walk by it own, and is transported to the hospital by alternate means

Yellow, serious condition but they have breath and pulse they are take care of after the red group

Red : They breath with help, no pulse, disoriented. they are the first to be take care of.

Black : no breath and pulse, not conscious. they are considered dead, and to be reevaluate last.

the trick is to save the most people possible

So if you have 3 victims, one uncounscious with repiratory trouble, one with several open fracture and heavy bleeding, and one in cardiac-respiratory arrest, you first go to the first victim to stabilise him, make sure he will not go in respiratory arrest. then you treat the one with heavy bleeding, and the you go see if the third one is still alive.

but again, we only talk on a field emergency procedure, not the whole system...

 

[demmalition1]

O.K., Pt. 2 (also, 3 pages! I never thought it would get this far.)

5. Do you understand my Dad's p.o.v.?

6. Could univ. healthcare be properly implemented here? It would cost around $62-113 billion/yr. and would require massive changes in the structure of how hospitals work.

more soon, I'm just tired right now...

 

[rossatdi]

O.K., Pt. 2 (also, 3 pages! I never thought it would get this far.)

5. Do you understand my Dad's p.o.v.?

6. Could univ. healthcare be properly implemented here? It would cost around $62-113 billion/yr. and would require massive changes in the structure of how hospitals work.

more soon, I'm just tired right now...

The problem really is implementation in the US. The NHS is actually very much the wrong system to look at copying because the NHS itself is a substantially different structure to what a lot of countries use with is based around health insurance.

Basically in the UK you pay your income tax and national insurance (nominally for health, welfare, pension) into one big pot. You then have free access to health care. This would be a nightmare to organise in the US. What a great many companies use is a form of enforced health insurance. Basically everyone has to pay it, like a tax, if you're earning - but you get it free if you're not. The rates are regulated by the government to stop cost running rampant and everyone is guaranteed cover (no turning away of sick people, as happens with a free market approach, after all, who would insure someone you know is going to get sick?).

As for your father, I can't really see his point of view other than he has been misinformed. He spent 80 grand saving your life, and that is a monumentally significant factor. Obviously it can't be nice to hear that if he lived in almost any other Western country, you would have received equal treatment and he would not have had to pay anything but a slightly higher tax rate.

Basically, no country or its people like being told their doing something wrong. American exceptionalism is even stronger than most countries so when you have the whole world pointing and laughing at the way they look after their sick I'm not surprised the response is vitriolic and defensive. After all, how easy is it to accept that your country is the best in the world when its being told it isn't.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

My impression of American healthcare can be summarised in Michael Moore's film Sicko: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386032/

Overpriced, unfair, and elitist. Good if you are rich I suppose. However, only 1% percent of the population is so...

Yup.
Sicko just makes you want to nuke America's healthcare system.
Its the type of documentary that makes me think' if i were ever going to move to america, i would move to somewhere near the canadian border, just for the health care'

 

[Danzaivar]

Summary at the bottom, reading is for background of the questions

2 weeks ago, my uncle flew in from Washington with his family to come visit us; he is a pastor at a church and is VERY consrevative (although, he is a caring, loving person that would do anything for me despite the tone of the following). At the dinner table, politics came up between us and we got to healthcare. He said that if we were to adopt univ. Healthcare that not only would we as a country go bankrupt, but that millions would receive much worse healthcare quality than before. He cited the fact that there were hundreds (or thousands, I forgot which) of Canadians crossing the border near his house to get "basic healthcare requirements" not given under the Canadian system and that it was an utter failure.

Now, I am the only liberal at thr table (of 7) and started to debate him on how we are 38th in terms of quality and how 47 million people don't even have healthcare. The topic started to get heated until the food arrived, at which point it was promptly dropped.

3 days ago we (my family, he flew back) went out to eat and were remenissing on this when healthcare came up again. I used the before argument and others (we pay the most (although some of it is a higher level of technological avaliability per hospital), the unnecessary drugs, some (not all) doctor salaries at 400k, the insurance cos. profits are excessive, others as well too numerous to post here).
My Dad said that he worked for his money and that the people who were unemployed would leech the system, that he earned his money and shouldn't have to spend it on another person because they should help themselves, long waiting periods for minor surgeries (see my "cure" thread for more), that we would be bankrupt, and one other thing...
I was born on March 24th, 1990 24 weeks early at 1lb. 4oz.. I had a 1 in 10,000,000 chance of survival and numerous complications (and scars to prove it); even if I lived I would've been mentally handicapped by all accounts. I was part of an expirementtal procedure along with 100 other babies and lived. My I.Q. Is 136 and I am somewhat healthy (more complications than normal).

My Dad said that if I were born in the U.K. or Canada, etc. that I would have died from being denied treatment because of the "statistical survivability rate" being too low and the govt. not waisting money (even though mortality is less there). He paid around 80k for me out of pocket to get the treatment.

Let me make 2 things clear:
1. I love my Dad with no end and his comment didn't phase me at all. I can understand his logic and feelings/emotions on this.
2. Although I do want univ. care, I would give it up as long as everyone is insured one way or another. I tend to read all sides of an argument before I formulate an opinion.

SUMMARY:
I would like these questions answered:
1. Does Canada's hwalthcare really suck that bad? Are there canadians coming here for medical purposes?
2. What problems are there with French/U.K. Healthcare? Because our media (except Faux) says mostly good things on it.
3. What is an outsider's perspective on American healthcare?
4. Would I have died?

I made this not to prod at anyone/thing, only to get a deeper understanding of the opinions and facts of the world around me.

Cheers, it's 3:30 a.m. here and the Palm Pre's keyboard is TINY!

EDIT: Pt. 2 on pg. 3

Well your Dad's argument about you dying at birth in Britain is complete Horse-Shit. They will do ANYTHING to try save a baby.

By fox-logic, 6 months of life here is capped at $30,000 or so. A new-born baby has potentially 80-90 years to live, so the 'life value' for that child would be between $4.8 million to $5.6 million. If there's an option available to save that child then it's going to be tried.

The only time anything like happens is say if there's a terminal cancer, and the only drugs available will just delay death by a couple of months and cost a fortune. There is no chance of these drugs curing the cancer. That's where cost effective-ness comes into the equation. As far as treatments that cure a condition go then they're much more willing to so whatever it takes.

Your elder's do have a point on one thing though. If you guys wanted to afford a public healthcare option, without raising taxes it would probably bankrupt you. I myself am against the British and Canadian ideology to health but I'm gonna stick up for it when blatant lies are peddled (Such as what your uncle and dad are saying...).

So they're kind of right, but kind of not.

 

[Son of Makuta]

I'll be honest, I vastly prefer the system we have here in the UK. Once, while at university I ran around a wet corner too quickly, slipped, and thanks to the cobblestones bashed a large hole in my chin. Got sent to hospital in a taxi, sewn up and was back in about three hours. I paid nothing other than 50p for a chocolate bar. My parents, who have little to no spare income, would not have been able to afford the sudden cost of treating me.

Yes we pay for it in taxes. But when you think about it, illness or injury can come upon you very suddenly; after all, it took me less than a second to go from upright-and-intact to horizontal-and-bleeding, and in America that second could have serious financial consequences for me and my low-income family.

 

[r0qu3]

1)hmm... i don't know about Canada. I live in Germany and we have universal healthcare and Social Welfare (as long as you try to help yourself). It's neat and i can just go to see a doctor whenever I want and this specialist argument is not right cause here you just have to wait longer to get an appointment but you get it (If you really just want to go to that fancy proffesor).

2) The Problems with Universal-Healthcare are two things. First and obvious its the money. It needs to get managed so that everybody gets something out of it and the general health insurance isn't giving the money easy. But the regulations are a bit harder so that nothing of OUR money (in germany even with no job you have to pay taxes on your unemployment compensation so that really everybody keeps payin) is wasted on useless stuff.
Second problem is the categorizing of illness, you have to develop a system which categorizes the pain or illness of everybody. So a cold has a low point and cancer is high up in the ladder. Finding these categories can be a very unfair, harmful und long process. Even today some people are in the court because the want their particular illness categorized higher up (somtimes for good, sometimes for bad reasons). That could be a social problem

3) Oh...haha..good fun. You pay more and get less or nothing. It's a shame and really really stupid that an country so modern and quite prosper is not cunning enough to come up with NHS. For the benefit of the PEOPLE and nobody else...Your own people the guys and gals you see everyday walking around town or being your neighbours....aren't they worth it?

4)Bullshit your father made up to strengthen his claims... the only places where NOT everything is done to rescue a child maybe india, china and 3rd world in general (cause of poorness, religious beliefs or social pressure).

Fazit: NHS has its problems in reality but they aren't bigger as the overall benefit for everybody. And I'm using it my whole life without any problems...honestly. It s like the guy above me says, you're injured, you get help and money is out of question.


Greetz, r0qu3

p.S.: Please apologize my terrible grammar. And everytime you think, hey this idiot is writing tall all the time to get his point over, consider that in my native language every noun is written big and i confuse from time to time

 

[Legion]

SUMMARY:
I would like these questions answered:
1. Does Canada's hwalthcare really suck that bad? Are there canadians coming here for medical purposes?
2. What problems are there with French/U.K. Healthcare? Because our media (except Faux) says mostly good things on it.
3. What is an outsider's perspective on American healthcare?
4. Would I have died?

1: Can't answer, not Canadian.

2: The only real issue is that people use it when they don't need to. You get stupid people who go into the A+E because of some minor scratch and whatnot wasting doctors and nurses time that could be taken up by patients who need help more. I assume this happens in other countries (stupidity is universal after all) but as it is "free" people do it more because it's not costing them anything extra for it.

3: To an extent I like it as you tend to get better treatment as an individual. The issue is cost per person and the fact it is very cold and uncaring as it is basically "we will help you if you can pay for it". It works, but it is not pleasant.

4: I have no idea, mainly because I don't know what you had to have done. I can assure you that we do not just allow people with physical and mental problems to just die because they have extra complications.

 

[Asciotes]

I can only answer no. 1.It's not horrendous, but it's not great either. I've never heard of Canadians going to the states for health care though (unless of course it's for a transfer). But if you were in Canada, yes they probably wouldn't have gone through with the surgery.

 

[Dr.Poisonfreak]

Right-O, Englishman away.

1on't know, I'm English.
2:The main problems are people in certain areas being denied treatment, for no decernible reason.
3:It seems rather unfair to those who cannot afford health insurance.
4:In England? Not unless your parents said so. You'd even make the news and get tons of support.

Or course, this is only what I've been told, so don't quote me on this.

agreed, you wouldn't have died, trust me on that, as soon as newborn babies are born over here they are given the very best care that the hospital can provide, love England, tally ho what what

 

[annoyinglizardvoice]

1. ? (never been there)
2. It's too beurocratic and badly organised to be perfect, but I feel more comfortable for having it. The only operation I've ever had was carried out really well and was well organised.
3. Too much profiteering.
4. They have tried, but they may have been more inclined to give up. There would have been big news coverage and possbily charity appeals.

 

[Frankydee]

I'm not going to berate you over this, although I don't totally agree with universal healthcare either. There are better solutions for this and they start with doing two simple things.

1) Stop frivolous lawsuits against doctors.
2) Cut the cost of healthcare. What people probably don't realize brings me back to reason 1. Doctors have to pay out for malpractice insurance to keep their jobs in case some money greedy son of a ***** decides he wants to be a dick and sue over something that was unavoidable. It's bullshit and that's why the price of healthcare is sky high.

It should also be noted that hospitals -cannot- deny someone service.

I would go on about Obama and his horrible ideas (just look at his cash for clunkers thing and how well that did...), but I'd probably get flamed halfway to hell and back for it so.

 

[dragonflygirl]

1. Does Canada's healthcare really suck that bad? Are there canadians coming here for medical purposes?
I can not answer this one as i have never been to canada or know any canadains

2. What problems are there with French/U.K. Healthcare? Because our media (except Faux) says mostly good things on it.
* in the last 20 years the UK NHS has gone a bit downhill, since the government started privating some NHS service . In the Last 10 years the Government have tried to make the NHS more into a business then a hospital.
* With it being free ther are those that milk the system or just waste the HNS time and funding. e.g A 12 year old breaks his arm, perfectly fine apart from the arm, what do the parents do, calls a bloody Ambulance. instead of taking the kid to the hospital themselfs.
* With certain drugs there is a Postcode Lottery.basciy those that live in certain area will or have a higher chance to get the drug(s) then those not in that area. This is due to limted funding the NHS gets and that some areas have a higher risk or percentage of a disease then other areas so they will get poiority.
*There is a Superbug going round hospital killing patients. this has only started to happen since the government privaties the cleaning services within the hospital. before it was up to the hospital to hired people to clean the hosiptal. but the government about 10 years ago (THANK YOU SO MUCH TONY BAIR) started to contract out these and other services to private companies, those with the lowest price wins the contract. this meansthe people the company hire to do the cleaning are paid minimujm wage and instead of 4-5 people they employ only 1 or 2. so the quality poor that is why there is the superbug infection going around

3. What is an outsider's perspective on American healthcare?
It is an elitiest organisation, funded by the drugs and tabaco industry. I have nothing bad to say about the hospital staff, but the directors and those higher up the chain will do and say anything to kept the sharholders, tobaco and drug companies happy.

4. Would I have died?
Im not sure if u would of died in a UK Hospital but on the NHS, they don't just leave you to die,the hospital will do all they can to get you better.

I am not saying that the NHS is a terrible systerm ( it would be better if the government would stop f***ing with it), Im proud to live in a country where if i need health care i will get it no matter poor or unhealthly i am.