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It also doesn't work when the privately insured are kept in the dark about their coverage, and other sources of support.
June this year the Mrs. Received a bill for $250,000 "uninsured excess". For her treatment for anorectal cancer (which seems to have worked). This was on top of the $18,000 out of pocket we already paid. Fortunately we're financially separate, so she was eligible for funding, and had that $1/4 mill written off no harm no foul. However to find that out took me three weeks of pursuit of insurers, the hospital, various local, state, and private organizations. Then we got the filing in just before it was in arrears (which would have been grounds for refusal of the application). This was while my wife underwent chemo and radio therapy.
Now if I wasn't so savvy, and if I wasn't so determined, and if one of the people I discussed this with were less helpful, then the $250k would have been owed by my wife for her treatment, AFTER insurance, and probably if a judicial solution was sought I'd probably be on the hook and $250k is a decent chunk of change. I wouldn't mind, but in truth she was only in hospital for about 2 hours a week (across 5 days) or 12 total hours in 6 weeks (across this didn't include imaging or specialist fees).
So all in all, We paid around $25k for the treatment, and I paid $600pm excess on my policy for the insurance for years, they paid $18k for the treatment, and the hospital wrote off (was paid whatever) $250k. That's kind of a cosmic joke there.
We survived a serious head on crash 1/1/17, I was lucky, my wife not. 3 months of hospitalization and the charges were around $1.2M. We paid a few thousand OOP, and her Obamacare paid the hospital about $200K, rehab about $100K.
How does it suck? They are able to mobilize efforts to address a serious crisis that hasn't been seen in 30 years. This year's flu epidemic is a very bad one.
Furthermore, a primary problem with today's NHS is budget cuts. If you don't fund it, it doesn't work appropriately. It's a bunch of idiots who think single payer is a failure or unneeded despite empirical evidence that shows the exact opposite.
Your answer is exactly correct, but the folks attacking UK healthcare on this forum are really just extremists and the ignorant. Most of them don't have a clue what they are talking about, they latch on to headlines like this in order to push their agendas, they don't care if they are wrong as long as they get to push the lie that public healthcare means your granny will die because the gov "decided" she should...
Time and time again it has been proven that the US could save about 50% per head and still have a great system if we moved to a public system.
BUT the real super double secret reason the US does not have public healthcare for all, is that the providing full public healthcare increases fiscal security for the bottom 80% more than any other single issue.
let me repeat that so that the haters might read it by mistake.
Denying full public healthcare to all Americans maintains fiscal insecurity for the vast majority of Americans. That is the key stone to our economic model. Insecurity.
Anyone who disagrees, should research it in a meaningful way. fiscal and social insecurity is how corporations and the 0.1% control.
IF the USA had real public healthcare for all and a reasonable social safety net, workers would not have to work so cheap, so hard and with such awful and unfair terms. the last thing the ruling corps and uber wealthy want is to see the public with a little employment leverage.
Profits have been going up for decades and at the same time wages have stayed flat. the gap keeps growing and growing. and almost all of those profits go to the top few %.
Except if you have the flu right now, but yeah it must be great to force a bunch of healthy folks to pay for your sickness.
You just don't get it do you? It's not about the healthy paying for the sick. It's everybody paying into the system, because it is highly likely that at some point in their lives, most people will require healthcare, even if they are the healthy well today. It's not a matter of different groups of people, it's more a matter of paying into the system today, if you can, because in the future you are likely to require healthcare. Today's healthy person can be tomorrow's disabled person in the blink of an eye; no one is immune from a serious illness or accident striking at any time.
I am not convinced the US could figure out how to do public health care well. We are such a mess, with so many special interests and corruption that I don't think it is within our grasp at this time.
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meh, the hospitals I've seen in London looked like they were out of a Stephen King novel. As an American, not sure how comfortable I'd be going in some of them.
what does non-essential mean and who determines the meaning? I dont want my health care to determined by the whims of bureaucrats.
please just stop Frank.
I have told you before that the nations with public healthcare plans ALSO have private care too.
and the private care does not cost all that much more because it is underpinned by the public healthcare sector. THUS YOU YES YOU would not have your healthcare decided by the state unless your AND your employer decided not to take the upgrade.
i will try again to see if this gets through to you.
Frank, if you lived in the UK you would have the option to buy better healthcare insurance. and much more likely your employer would do it for you as a perk.
Do you understand yet frank? do ya? it is a tiered system, the proles mostly pay ZERO to the min. the middle classes get everything the proles get but buy a "top up" plan. and the upper middle class to rich get nice private hospitals etc..
i have lived with both systems . Public healthcare systems are vastly better and cheaper. and for the more well to do they are even better because they pay for your heart op, and your "extra coverage" pays for the nice room, the faster fancy service etc..
stop pretending public healthcare means less choice, it means much more choice and cheaper too. Maybe you should research it.
meh, the hospitals I've seen in London looked like they were out of a Stephen King novel. As an American, not sure how comfortable I'd be going in some of them.
The hospitals may not be attractive, but that's beside the point. They keep costs down, and concentrate on the delivery of healthcare services, not frills like a nice lobby. I'd rather have a utilitarian hospital and not be bankrupted by having an illlness.
The hospitals may not be attractive, but that's beside the point. They keep costs down, and concentrate on the delivery of healthcare services, not frills like a nice lobby. I'd rather have a utilitarian hospital and not be bankrupted by having an illlness.
Good points. I had heart surgery in 2002, The place was a shthole but the docs. nurses and care top notch!
All of this whining ignores the fact that there are still third-party options for these things. If you want to pay an extra $100,000 for a surgery like you can now, you'll still be able to.
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