The good old NHS.
#47
Re: The good old NHS.
The nurses in private hospitals are usually fitter than the NHS. Good enough reason to go private I say.
#48
Forum Regular
Joined: Jul 2012
Location: Dubai
Posts: 35
Re: The good old NHS.
The uk NHS is an institution that has been a victim of its own success, in many ways. It has delivered efficient, caring and complex care to people who needed it when they needed it and has, mostly, done this well.
In the past there was little learning from issues (and incidents) and while this has increased hugely there is still some way to go, and institutional change starts from the top where a culture of just blame and openness is essential. The Stafford report was critical of the leadership and the brushing over of a number of complaints and incidents that should have been red flags for bigger issues.
Having used the nhs at home and the private healthcare here, I see the main difference as beng able to choose and control who you see and when, so far it's been good here but we have good insurance and I know some people who don't. At home we would all be the same.
In the past there was little learning from issues (and incidents) and while this has increased hugely there is still some way to go, and institutional change starts from the top where a culture of just blame and openness is essential. The Stafford report was critical of the leadership and the brushing over of a number of complaints and incidents that should have been red flags for bigger issues.
Having used the nhs at home and the private healthcare here, I see the main difference as beng able to choose and control who you see and when, so far it's been good here but we have good insurance and I know some people who don't. At home we would all be the same.
#49
Banned
Joined: Mar 2012
Location: Jeddah, KSA
Posts: 822
Re: The good old NHS.
This is utter nonsense. Of course health insurance providers have to be organised around the primary administrative units of the United STATES of America which is a federal union after all. That's a necessary cost of doing business just like it would be, for example, in education or policing were they privatised (or is in the case of private security businesses including those who run "correctional facilities"). Are you seriously trying to argue that this need to be organised on a state level accounts for 4 or 5 or, god forbid, 8% of total GDP which is the type of cost premium the US endures over other developed nations, even those with substantially private healthcare?
Now if you want to make a real argument about what differentiates the US, then you could bring up the issue of legal costs which do have a meaningful impact on the total cost. However, the fundamental issue is that "the market" in this instance does not function so there is a profoundly inefficient allocation of resources with a huge amount of redundancy in facilities and provisions which the system allows investors to fully recover in charges....
Now if you want to make a real argument about what differentiates the US, then you could bring up the issue of legal costs which do have a meaningful impact on the total cost. However, the fundamental issue is that "the market" in this instance does not function so there is a profoundly inefficient allocation of resources with a huge amount of redundancy in facilities and provisions which the system allows investors to fully recover in charges....
Microsoft is registered in Delaware and sells same products across the US without the need to be a registered company in each state and without the need to customize the products according to legislation of each individual state. Health insurance companies in contrast have to be registered in the state they operate in and cannot offer services in other states. These are two fundamentally different environments to do business which have nothing to do with ' the primary administrative units' and everything to do with regulation aimed specifically at health insurance companies. This is clearly something you do not understand and never will understand so I'll leave it at that.
Last edited by Desert Dubliner; Jan 27th 2013 at 3:11 pm.
#50
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,107
Re: The good old NHS.
Sorry but you are clueless, which is what I have come to expect from opinionated liberals. The legal charges have nothing to do with the market but with self-protected professions, complex legal code and judges awarding silly money. But this is typical, create red tape and then blame market when the thing is expensive and broken.
Microsoft is registered in Delaware and sells same products across the US without the need to be a registered company in each state and without the need to customize the products according to legislation of each individual state. Health insurance companies in contrast have to be registered in the state they operate in and cannot offer services in other states. These are two fundamentally different environments to do business which have nothing to do with ' the primary administrative units' and everything to do with regulation aimed specifically at health insurance companies. This is clearly something you do not understand and never will understand so I'll leave it at that.
Microsoft is registered in Delaware and sells same products across the US without the need to be a registered company in each state and without the need to customize the products according to legislation of each individual state. Health insurance companies in contrast have to be registered in the state they operate in and cannot offer services in other states. These are two fundamentally different environments to do business which have nothing to do with ' the primary administrative units' and everything to do with regulation aimed specifically at health insurance companies. This is clearly something you do not understand and never will understand so I'll leave it at that.
And your repeated claim that health insurance companies cannot offer services in other states presumably doesn't apply to the 36 companies mentioned in this article as national or regionally significant health insurance providers?
And this regulation "aimed specifically at health insurance companies", that must be a liberal conspiracy of some sort, right? Now let me think which political party controls most state legislatures and governorships....(hint it's the one which likes to bang on about eliminating regulation and happens to take an awful lot of money from the insurance industry).
#51
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Joined: Mar 2012
Location: Jeddah, KSA
Posts: 822
Re: The good old NHS.
The interstate insurance policy market was a major GOP proposal within their proposed alternative to Obamacare but I am not surprised you haven't heard of it given the pro-Obama bias of most media. In the US the health insurance is regulated on state level since McCarran Ferguson Act. This means that you have to buy a plan approved by the state you live in and depending on the preferences of the regulators (and here the liberals win with their drug-counselling-birth-control-covering etc coverages) you will pay 30 to 50% more (this is according to Forbes, not by me, I am not a policy institute). So you can't look to other policies that may suit your requirements if your state is mandating otherwise, you will pay for Botox and all kinds of luxury crap.
#52
Re: The good old NHS.
Well it's nice to see someone free of ideological bias like you. How else, other than it being a result of a thorough unbiased consideration, can one explain the position that the mandated absence of cross-state competition of health insurers would have no effect on cost! Pure fiction on my behalf. The necessity to have a legal entity operational in each state and the associated administration, HO etc is free of charge. Also the fact that the insurers need to factor in the various unnecessary treatments mandated in the basic package also does not have a cost implication. No, there are no other reasons behind the expensive 3rd world care other than them (Americans) being fat and stupid.
Quality of care can be world class, doesn't mean anything to people who don't have access to it based on cost or personal circumstance such as having a pre-existing condition.
#53
Banned
Joined: Mar 2012
Location: Jeddah, KSA
Posts: 822
Re: The good old NHS.
Big chunk of the cost that doesn't seem happen in other countries to the extent here include the massive amounts spent on administration of policies, advertising, liability insurance and the fact that there aren't government scale caps of profits for drugs or economy of scale on sales of drugs.
You can't get new insurance on a pre-existing condition for the same reason you can't get house insurance on a house which is already on fire. However, you can move insurance and your conditions will be covered provided these were insured previously.
#54
Account Closed
Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 0
Re: The good old NHS.
So does that mean that the EU's E111 card is also a better thing than health cover in the US?
#55
Joined: Jan 2012
Posts: 1,107
Re: The good old NHS.
The interstate insurance policy market was a major GOP proposal within their proposed alternative to Obamacare but I am not surprised you haven't heard of it given the pro-Obama bias of most media. In the US the health insurance is regulated on state level since McCarran Ferguson Act. This means that you have to buy a plan approved by the state you live in and depending on the preferences of the regulators (and here the liberals win with their drug-counselling-birth-control-covering etc coverages) you will pay 30 to 50% more (this is according to Forbes, not by me, I am not a policy institute). So you can't look to other policies that may suit your requirements if your state is mandating otherwise, you will pay for Botox and all kinds of luxury crap.
Even the insurance companies themselves don't make an issue about this(see the link I provided earlier to the Blue Cross site which has an extensive discourse on sources of cost and doesn't even mention this factor). If your point was valid then insurance premiums should be much lower in rabidly red states like Texas and Georgia and even in other Republican controlled states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But they simply are not. That dog don't hunt as they say in those places...
And by the way, what do you then call the insurance exchanges established by Obama's healthcare act?
I mean I really don't care about this argument and I'm guessing neither do most other people reading this forum. But I am not going to let you keep getting away with your arrogant aggressive peddling of nonsense. Jeez, what are you, Rush Limbaugh?
#56
Re: The good old NHS.
Whilst I fail to see the relevance of my avatar, I would like to point out that I have a lovely personality...
#57
Re: The good old NHS.
And the thread moved to personal attacks the moment someone uses the word 'liberal' (with a lower case 'l') as an insult. That usually means someone feels they are losing an argument.
Let me point out that one of the definitions is: free from bigotry.
Let me point out that one of the definitions is: free from bigotry.
#58
Lost in BE Cyberspace
Joined: Nov 2012
Location: bute
Posts: 9,740
Re: The good old NHS.
Genuine pinko liberals do not pay attention to the looney ranters on the right.
#60
Hit 16's
Joined: Mar 2010
Location: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine
Posts: 13,112