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I'm a doctor. Hospitals in New York, Baltimore, Miami, Houston, and Chicago are full of Brits and peoples from other countries undergoing medical treatments and procedures that are unavailable in Britain. Sad maybe, but true enough.
Some countries choose to send - and pay for - patients to undergo treatment in other countries because it is cheaper and more efficient than trying to set up equivalent facilities at home.
Jaggy- I agree with you about cost. But, that is not the only difference. There are vast differences in the delivery and quality of care. It's also about preventative care which is almost not even part of the NHS. As Danbo also points out, there are treatments and techniques carried out in the US that are not even available in the UK.
I was with a doctor here once running through some options for a situation I was in. He asked where I was from and when I told.him he literally said "oh, well you're used to a socialized system. It's a little more advanced here!". He was born in Lincolnshire.
International comparisons, especially by the WHO, can be biased by one metric or another and not a reflection of the quality of care available. But like I said, it's not about the US vs UK system, it's more about the right system. The US is not it, and the UK is certainly not it. I honestly don't think most Brits understand the reality of the NHS compared to other systems.
Mag ... I don't want to get into a discussion of one system versus another which is digressing from the OP. However, there is a reality which is that the health systems of all the developed countries deliver pretty good care no matter which organisational/financial model they use and this is reflected by most of the metrics being in a fairly tight band no matter which source you look at.
It is certainly true that there are treatments and techniques available in the USA which are not available elsewhere. That can be due to a number of factors which include the size of the US market as well as financial incentives that exist in the USA but do not exist elsewhere. Of course access to these treatments and techniques is quite another matter whether you are in the USA or elsewhere. The NHS can and does send patients abroad where the treatment is not available in the UK as yet. Other countries (e.g. Canada) do the same.
Healthcare in all countries is rationed by cost or by ability to pay. The NHS rations by cost. The USA rations by ability to pay (i.e. how good is your insurance and your ability to cover the co-pays/deductible). Other countries are somewhere in the middle.
And the reason that you have such a petition is because you have a government entity which is responsible and which is sensitive to public opinion. What do you do when it is a private entity which is responsible and which is only sensitive to profit?
And the reason that you have such a petition is because you have a government entity which is responsible and which is sensitive to public opinion. What do you do when it is a private entity which is responsible and which is only sensitive to profit?
I would think the fact that this service doesn't exist in the first place is a much larger point than public vs private response to demand, no? The reason it doesn't exist is public spending (which will suffer a brutal axe in Osborne 's new budget by the way) and an inadequate system.
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