vikingsail

Not strictly true - think most Commonwealth countries certainly Canada, Australia, NZ.

Oh and then there is the US military medical system which is accessed by our great politicians in Congress and the Senate which operates yes you guessed it just like the NHS- its free at POS, a Universal system where all are covered?

It's a US shell game to convince the users that coverage for all does not work. Of course it does but it means no profit for the few....

SanDiegogirl

..... and what about Medicare for us Senior Citizens? Pay into the system and a single payer (the Government agency) pays the bills.

Personally, I think it is a godsend after dealing with private health insurance companies and all their do's /don'ts and maybe's when it comes to paying; and prior to Obamacare they would not cover pre-conditions.

Giantaxe

Medicare is (largely) single payer but, unlike the NHS, it is not single-provider. As previously mentioned the VA is close in alignment to the NHS model.

carcajou

Because it isn't true. There was public assistance (passed by legislation) for indigent seniors, the majority of those over 65 were insured, and it was also common for charities to get involved.

Not everyone who could get help, took it - there was then, and continues to be today, a huge public stigma for those who took state assistance.

Giantaxe

According to this article, half of over 65s had insurance pre-Medicare. And it adds:

""And what they had was terrible insurance -- it didn’t do much to cover them," said
Dorothy Pechman Rice, a retired professor at the University of California at San Francisco who served as director of the National Center for Health Statistics from 1976 to 1982.

The study found that nine out of 10 couples, and eight out of 10 elderly individuals, "assumed responsibility for their own costs without help from government sources or private voluntary agencies." Some paid from their own savings or with the help of insurance, and some could pay "only because doctors or hospitals adjusted their rates in light of the patient’s limited resources."

I also see that the article says that the government program to cover elderly indigent care covered less than 250k people.

Even more gloomy are these alarming statistics at the end of the article:

"In a 1963 survey, patients from the general population were given a list of symptoms and asked whether they had been able to see a physician about them. Among those who reported "pains in the heart," 25 percent said they did not see a physician; for "unexpected bleeding" it was 34 percent; for "shortness of breath," it was 35 percent; for "abdominal pains," it was 31 percent; for "repeated vomiting," it was 40 percent; for "diarrhea for four or five days," it was 38 percent. "

Just wow. And that is from a general population census, where the rate of insureds would have been higher for the working age population than for the over 65's. It is clear that many seniors back then were extremely worried about the financial consequences of illness.

And it concludes:

"Many people in the U.S. prior to 1965 had very limited access to medical care," said Ronald Andersen, an emeritus professor of health services and sociology at the UCLA School of Public Health who has studied this data since the 1960s and provided the data to us. "This situation improved considerably after the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid."

Were the early 1960s a golden age for health care? | PolitiFact

durham_lad

Medicare also only covers 80% of the cost of doctors’ services with no out of pocket maximum, and the prescription coverage, which has only existed since 2003, is very expensive for those requiring lots of medication.

http://www.medicare.gov/



Additional insurance (such as Medigap) is pretty much a necessity to cover the 20% out of pocket costs to avoid huge hospital bills for serious illnesses.

scrubbedexpat099

VA is a better comparison.

I remember years back being lambasted about Socialist Medical care, asked them who their insurer was knowing the answer - Medicare!

One of the reasons it will not happen is the lack of trust most of the population has in the Government running anything, see VA Denver new facility.

durham_lad

Medicaid is also US government run healthcare. In 2011 I volunteered as an IRS tax preparer.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/free...-by-volunteers

One tax return I did was for a couple with 3 small children. During the tax year 2010 the husband had a heart attack at age 50 and lost his job as a security guard and did not have health insurance to cover his needed bypass surgery. His wife was a stay at home mother. While preparing their taxes I saw that they had no medical bills to deduct and when I asked about this they said that Medicaid stepped in and was wonderful, and they did not have to pay a penny.

Many US folks don’t realize how much of their taxes goes into government health programs like the VA, Medicare and Medicaid.

civilservant

State?

Only if you don't bother to look at your check stubs...

GeoffM

As some of you know, we have a son on the autism spectrum. Through Kaiser Permanente and then a subsequent insurer we had home ABA therapy. However, the therapist left the provider and they were not able to locate a replacement. We moved to a better area with a highly recommended hospital (my wife is an RN) so got their supposedly fantastic healthcare - a faith-based (don't laugh) insurance plan, and hospital employee plans are usually some of the better plans. They would not provide ABA therapy as they determined he did not need it. They recommended he go see a doctor for re-evaluation as his autism diagnosis was now 4 years ago. Their recommended doctor spent 2 hours evaluating him and decided there was nothing wrong with him, much to the shock of his other doctors/teachers/us. Also a $400 bill for this because the insurance won't cover their own recommendation, which I'm contesting.

Some time after that we somehow qualified for Medi-Cal for him. Free prescriptions now and I think free doctor visits. Yesterday we had a new assessment from Medi-Cal assessors and he has a new autism diagnosis which we fully agree with. The treatment for this one? ABA therapy (which is also true of the previous diagnosis). I am livid that the $1800 Cobra cost (this is among platinum plan costs) that we could have paid while my wife switched employer was worth nothing. Instead the State stepped in and provided far better care than the hospital supposedly covering mental health.

Long story short: supposedly good, and costly, insurers denied ABA treatment for son for 2 years; public health programs filled the void.

Giantaxe

Good to hear your son got the treatment he needs in the end.

For those not in California, Medi-Cal is its Medicaid implementation, which was expanded under the ACA.

durham_lad

Texas, more specifically Montgomery County (north of Houston).

MidAtlantic

Kate Middleton’s ‘luxury’ birth cost less than the average U.S. birth

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ka...rth-2018-04-24

excpomea

I love the VA over here. Great service, annual medicals, free flu shots, free hearing aids with Bluetooth and consumables, free eye glasses and free prescriptions.

My only gripe is having to pass the big photo of the 'Idiot in chief' on my way into the facility.

durham_lad

Is that the one with the bone spurs on the heel, but he can’t remember which one?