Ash UK/US

she'llberight

Never was a truer word spoken.

Patrick

Now lets be fair. Most brits thing the nhs is OK because its free and if you have to wait a couple of hours to be seen so be it, its still free. I have never had to wait longer than two hours which makes me lucky on your books.

In america the medical service is only as good as your insurance, unless you can afford to pay for it. My neighbor was admitted to hospital and they wanted to keep her for 3 nights for observation but her insurance would only pay for 1 night. My wife was admitted to hospital in the UK and they kept her for 3 days when she should of only been in for 1 night (they wouldn't let her leave without an ultrasound and they couldn't get down there).

I am finding it very difficult to argue with your logic on what makes a good health care system though, so lets analyse my life and see where I had the best health care

place distance to hospital
sheffield 1 mile
preston 5 miles
portsmouth 5 miles
Cambridge 2 miles
Soham 20 miles
NC 17 miles


so based on your theory that the further away from a hospital you live america is the second worst health care. Of course its not your own dumb fault if you decide to by a house far away from the hospital, whats the health service supposed to do, see where you buy a house and build a hospital close by. Bad NHS for me moving to house far from the hospital, bad, bad, bad. I live 4 hours drive from the mountains where I lived 2 in the UK, by your logic - mountains in us bad, mountains in uk good. Maybe you should move closer to your braincell

Patrick

AlisonPA

Well seeing as in the UK the NHS have closed so many Emergency Departments it's difficult to live near one. Who will move just for that! I lived in Kent and the closest ER was about 5 minutes away then they closed the ER and it was 25 minutes away.

And it's not free, I paid into the NHS for 30 years. I realise people that don't work get it free but I have worked all my life. Oh yes by the way, you are obviously an imbecile and a rude one at that!

Patrick

Yes because I am the one who bases my opinion on distance! You pay tax, you pay tax here. Its free in the uk because you get the treatment irrelevant of whether you have great insurance or not, you get the same treatment if you work 30 years or 3 minutes. You get treatment based on what you can afford in the us (as long as your not dumb enough to live far from a hospital, then your level of treatment goes down exponentially).

Gosh and to think they have never closed down an ER in the US. When you can formulate an argument that holds water and is logical and then I mock it, then you can call me imbecile, until then I think you have no legs to stand on. I thank you

dunroving

I don't think the NHS has the corner of the market whan it comes to making you wait. I have waited plenty in the US.

I haven't been very impressed with treatment in the US at all. One small example: when I was receiving treatment for my back at a local physical therapy center, I asked the PT to explain the treatment to me. He used a model of the spine to tell me. "But you've got it back to front", I said. It took three tries to eventually get him to realize he was holding the spine back to front. After 12 weeks of treatment, my back was worse than when I started - surprising, as I'd lightened the load in my wallet by about 1500 dollars. At least in the UK you don't have to pay $50 an hour for crap treatment.

Englishmum

My Australian friend was telling me that Aussie physiotherapists are now in great demand by sports teams in the US. Apparently the US Olympic squad were greatly impressed by the Aussie P/Ts at the Olympic games in Sydney. He says that in Australia (as in the UK) you do a specialised BSc (Hons) Physiotherapy degree. (I do know that these are heavily oversubscribed in British universities as it's a sought-after profession). I understand that in the USA the Physios don't have as much intensive and in-depth training compared to the UK and Australian university systems, doing a more general course by doing various subjects not as allied to the health professions.

(This was the Aussies view - I personally have no idea if he is correct in his remarks or not).

About a month ago I had to drive my friend and her daughter to the nearest ER when the little girl had an accident. This was on a Saturday night and we waited for three hours without any explanation....she was 'patched up' with some sort of glue-gun (a suture wasn't needed) and it took 30 seconds.

ladyofthelake

You were lucky, we had to wait 6 hours (here in Florida) for the same treatment on my son's head. The reason for the wait? None of the doctors wanted to take on the 30 second job on a paediatric patient.
.

lairdside

In fact if you've never worked a day, or paid a penny in the UK you still get the same treatment under the NHS.

And for those who can afford it in the UK, there is always the option of Private care (and/or private medical insurance).

I had this in the UK and found the standard of care to be in general superior to that in US private hospitals. I feel that like should be compared to like. On a pound for pound basis the NHS does damm well in the care it provides imho!

Yorkieabroad

Similar experience with our (then) 20 month old - green gunk started pouring out of his eyes on a saturday afternoon. Got him down the ER sharpish - to be fair the wait wasn't that long, but long enough conisdering we were the only people there. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, and told us to contact his paedi on monday. Turned out he was on an adults dosage......and the paedi took him off them straight away.


Cost - 2 x $30 copay, $85 for the wrong prescription, $55 for the right one...nice!

Yorkieabroad

Well said!

Lots of discussions elsewhere on the relative merits of the NHS, but to my mind, you don't really miss it till you leave it. Especially if its replaced by the dogs dinner of a system that we have here.....

Manc

So?

Isn't it good?

Aren't we a tad more civilised to think to ourselves in Britain, yes we know there are twats who rip off the system and sit on welfare, but so what, at least my life saving won't beblown if/when I get colon cancer.

I cannot consider the USA the greatest nation in the word as parents get into deep debt in order to pay for their kids kidney dialysis.

lairdside

The whole basis of the NHS was that it should be a system under which people recieved treatment on the basis of need - rather than ability to pay.

Good? I believe that it's the only humane way to be.

My statement wasn't a criticism, just a clarification of fact.

Manc

oooh sorry for taking it out of context, I thought you were knocking it.

I sincerely believe that if the UK population were each asked to pay £20 per year in NI contributions tomaintain the NHS, then they would.

lairdside

No worries. I was just expanding upon Patrick's point that it doesn't matter how small or large the amount you have paid into the system is, fact is it doesn't matter if you have paid zero.

I used to work for the NHS part-time when I lived in the UK (with the other half of my time in private practise). We all know that it has it's faults, was never designed to deal with a steadily aging population etc. Still, I for one am a firm advocate of socialised medicine. The NHS is still THE most comprehensive system of socialised medicine in the world.

Most of the people who cannot afford private medicine in the UK to avoid the waiting lists could not afford any health insurance at all in the US. Personally I'd rather be stuck on a waiting list than be told to "go home and die" for inability to pay.