Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

The UK has a lower physician to capita ratio.

The UK had 2.8 physicians per 1,000 people in 2016, compared to 4.1 in Germany (2015), 3.9 in Spain (2015), 3.8 in Italy (2015), 3.5 in Australia (2015, est), 3.4 in France, 3.0 in New Zealand (2015) and 2.7 in Canada (2015).

It certainly is cheaper, but in the grand scheme of things it's probably awash. Taxes in the US are less than the UK on the whole.

Current expenditure per capita (using the purchasing power parity) for the UK was $4,192 in 2016. This can be compared to $9,892 in the USA, $5,551 in Germany, $5,385 in the Netherlands, $5,199 in Denmark, $4,644 in Canada, $4,600 in France, $3,391 in Italy and $3,248 in Spain.

http://www.nhsconfed.org/resources/k...ics-on-the-nhs

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

Where I used to live the doctor returns your call within 2 to 3 days. If it's urgent you either need to go to the urgent care or go and sit and wait in the surgery between 8 and 9 and hope you get seen. Service in the UK varies a lot across the country.

In the US I can use email to send my doctor photos and they normally reply within a few hours.

To get BUPA in the UK would cost me almost $200/month extra. The health spend figure for the UK, I assume do not include private medicine.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

How can it be a wash when it eats up a much larger chunk of GDP without even managing to cover the entire population? Whichever way you want to cut it, healthcare is more expensive in the US, be it through premiums and wages forgone to pay for company-provided insurance. Taxes are only part of the story and, one way or another, that much larger cost is paid for.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

Cost of living compared to salary is less in the US. So taking everything else into account, not just healthcare, what I spend on just existing is less in the US in relative terms.

However I have never been out of work for more than a few days.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

A different argument and one that has nothing to do with the subject at hand - cost of healthcare.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

I think you have to look at the bigger picture. Healthcare in India and Mexico is much cheaper, but people earn a lot less. India only spends $74.99 per person on healthcare, way less than the UK.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

They also have way poorer health outcomes so it's kind of irrelevant too.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

So true

A Lancet Oncology global study found that 91.9 per cent of Americans with prostate cancer were still alive after five years compared to just 51.1 per cent in the UK.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

Some of that difference is explained by lead time bias:

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the...-people-think/

I do agree that the UK performs relatively poorly compared to many western countries in cancer survival rates. However, that it just one measure. For example, the UK has higher life expectancy than does the US so the NHS is presumably doing something right. Even more startling is that life expectnacy in the US is actually declining:

https://qz.com/1163244/us-life-expec...-opioids-rise/

And at the very least there is some culpability attached to the US healthcare system for the huge rise in opioid addiction.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

Hopefully annuity prices will drop in the US on this news.

There is a lot of disparity in the US between poor and rich. 15 years difference for men. https://healthinequality.org/documen...eq_summary.pdf

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

When I was 21 years old my Mum died of a rare blood disease called 'Waldenstroms', she had developed it over some years, as I just said it killed her.
I am a truck driver, I work for a very good company who seem to really care, it is nationwide with about 2,000 trucks and yet I can actually call and chat to the CEO or VP when I get a problem.
A few years back I went to the loo and to my shock started peeing blood and I mean pure blood, not just a pink tint in the urine, early in 2016 I started to loose energy and felt weak when trying to do strenuous work, the symptoms got gradually worse until a week before Thanksgiving as I was pulling some product hoses out of a tanker at work I felt so weak I couldn't do it, a fellow worker did the work for me and said I should go to hospital. I got home the afternoon that day and my wife told me I had turned grey and made an appointment with the local doctors, I went, they took blood and sent me home. That night I got a call from a lab in Vermont telling me to go straight to the nearest ER, I refused but my wife dragged me in, my blood count was only 4.9 and I needed a blood transfusion ASAP. Glens Falls hospital the saints that they are gave me 4 units of blood over a 36 hour period and saved my life, however they found I had something unknown in my blood, it was just pure luck that a new doctor had recently joined the staff there and recognized my symptoms, after a bone marrow biopsy it was confirmed that I had Waldenstroms disease like my Mum, obviously I inherited it, it is a rare cancer with no known cure. Over the first 4 months I was given chemo which almost killed me and actually increased the cancer levels. I was then given a trial drug which costs a terrifying $16k a month, obviously no regular working person can afford this, I have been told to not even worry about it by the doctor.
My total hospital bill so far is way over half a million dollars... Am I worried ? No, because I am just happy to be alive, worrying about the cost of healthcare just makes you feel worse.

Even though my company health insurance must be pushing for them to find some way of getting rid of me, the CEO and VP stand by me and make sure I stay employed and covered.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

I suppose if one gets a heavily subsidized health plan through an employer, one might be better off in the US.

For ourselves I suppose the $2.00/month plan at Kaiser appears cheap at first, but is it really once you account for the deductibles?

$12600 (Family)

$1000 (Family)

First 3 visits at $75 Copay before deductible (GP visits)

Lab tests $40 Copay

X-ray's full cost prior to deductible, then 100% covered.

Prescriptions no coverage before deductible, then 100%.

So cheap per month yes, but as we do need to visit the doctor in the year and have monthly prescriptions, this sort of plan would cost far more then we pay in all taxes in Canada.

The gold plan which is 288.80/month is better.

$0 deductible.

$25 Copay for doctor.

$35 Copay for labs.

$55 for x-rays & 275 for MRI/CT scans.

Generic drugs $15/Name brand $55

So before even going to a doctor, this plan costs $3,465

Add in prescriptions, doctor copay's, lab co-pays etc, another 1,500-2,000/yr.

Lets say around $4,500 or so in total.

Before tax credits total taxes that would have been paid $2,406.71 and that includes nearly free healthcare.

We qualify for certain tax credits, so our actual income tax paid is $0 and we get about $90 every 3 months in sales tax refund to cover some of the sales tax we pay.

Obviously no 2 people are alike, but I cannot see any way on this planet where healthcare in the US would be a better deal financially for us.

I would venture at our 2016 income level in the US we would likely also owe tax on top of the healthcare as the US doesn't have the same sort of credits Canada has that benefit the low to low middle income.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

Actually I assumed the10% figure included all health care expenditures in the UK.The US system has terrible inefficiency built into it at every level, and no cost control.

In any case in the UK everyone can get medical care which isn't true in the USA, and overall at a lower cost to the economy. The US system is both unfair for a first world country, but expensive and hurts the competitiveness of many companies on the world markets . I agree NHS isn't perfect and has many faults, but I am unaware any rational person would choose a system like the USA where so many cant afford medical care.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

this comment with all due respect, I think is part of the issue in the USA, people who have health care seem to have little empathy for those who don't, or the working poor who even if they have some insurance can easily go bankrupt with any serious medical illness.as far as having a job there are parts of America now where getting a decent living wage is fairly difficult. the town where I am from in UK pretty depressed economically similar to area I was last in USA- but people generally don't have to worry about a place to live, medical care. the USA is not just west or east coast.

Re: An example of unexpected medical bills
 

:goodpost::nod::wave: