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What abot those that have had experience with the British NHS? Are we just supposed to remain quiet because you do not want to hear anyone criticizing what you see as a model solution? I lived in the UK for years and had to use the NHS system for everything from routine care to inpatient surgical procedures. It is not the same level of care, period. I lived it. The NHS is broke, and has been for decades. There are shortages of doctors, wait lists, and many other problems.
You did not have to use the NHS. You could have bought private health care.
My mother is 87, has some significant medical challenges and lives in the UK. She gets very good care under the NHS. In addition, she gets 4 visits a day by the social services to help her take her meds and to help her get showered etc..
Talking of waiting lists. Here in the USA, my wife has to wait two months to see a foot doctor ... and we have good insurance
The UK manages life expectancy levels and infant mortality as good, if not better, than the USA. Just imagine if the NHS was not 'broke' (your words).
You did not have to use the NHS. You could have bought private health care.
My mother is 87, has some significant medical challenges and lives in the UK. She gets very good care under the NHS. In addition, she gets 4 visits a day by the social services to help her take her meds and to help her get showered etc..
Talking of waiting lists. Here in the USA, my wife has to wait two months to see a foot doctor ... and we have good insurance
The UK manages life expectancy levels and infant mortality as good, if not better, than the USA. Just imagine if the NHS was not 'broke' (your words).
Not only that, but the UK with it's "evil, horrible, inefficient NHS" is ranked second best in the world in terms of medical research, and has some of the most reknowned hospitals in the world that are NOT private, but run by the NHS. Hell, even Prince Philip (that's Queen Elizabeth's husband for those that don't know) has been treated by the NHS before
Why do the people with the means come to America for serious medical issues?
Why do the people with means leave the U.S. for serious medical issues?
"A McKinsey and Co. report from 2008 found that between 60,000 to 85,000 medical tourists were traveling to the United States for the purpose of receiving in-patient medical care. The same McKinsey study estimated that 750,000 American medical tourists traveled from the United States to other countries in 2007 (up from 500,000 in 2006).
That's 60,000-85.000 U.S. inbound medical tourists versus 750,000 U.S. outbound medical tourists.
In comparison to US health costs, medical tourism patients can save 30 to 60 percent on health costs in Canada"
For the same reason why veterans here are not forced to get treatment at a VA hospital, although you very well could. Not everything is perfect, but things can get better.
How many is so many Canadians? My source says only about 44,000 Canadians went outside of Canada for healthcare in 2010, out of a population of 33.4 million. That's roughly 1/5 of 1%, doesn't sound like the exodus you are trying to paint, now does it?
And that includes geriatric Snowbirds who live in the US during the winter and happened to get sick.
When none of them have had any experience with such a system? There's dozens of Canadian and British posters on here who can easily refute just about any ridiculous claim made by reactionaries against both systems. So:
1. How many people die as a result of a waiting list in Canada and the UK, compared to how many people die in the US because they can't pay for a procedure for whatever reason (which amounts to a defacto waiting list of sorts)?
2. I also constantly read just how superior US healthcare is. Sure, healthcare is superior in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh or Cleveland, but what about those people, of which a plurality, if not most, Americans live in such settings; namely being those that live in a no-name city like Altoona, PA or Somerset, PA or some other small, rusted out town in eastern Kentucky, etc.? Not every geographical area in the US has a Cleveland Clinic, a Philadelphia Children's Hospital, or some other respectable Level I trauma center. The Level II and III trauma centers are not centers of innovation and world class healthcare, everybody seems to forget those in their rants.
That's a very good question and helps illustrate our conundrum. State/Federal Gov't can try and regulate and control, but this is very crude and has a serious lag time of probably years. Letting free markets decide sounds and might work better, but if the Golden Goose lays too many eggs I can tell you from personal experience that we're all gonna pay more, and for no better outcomes.
With/without ACA, as written, we are all going to pay more because outcomes have been and continue to improve each year.
You didn't read your own link? We're having a baby boom and there's no room in our neonatal units. Moms are flown to Seattle and we still pick up the tab.
It's cheaper than building another hospital.
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