Why would some people want American style healthcare?

[FishCanFly]

I mean, to abolish the NHS for extortionate private insurance?

@Tableclothing I don’t know how much of an explanation this is but about half of all births in the US are paid for by a Medicaid which is government funded healthcare for people on v low incomes. Also there’s some particularly shocking evidence that suggests black women can receive worse care- Serena Williams’ birth story is worth reading. I also know from my personal experience that the best hospital in the area doesn’t accept my insurance. Fortunately 1 of the other 2 I can choose from is still very good and the upside of our plan is that we have no deductible and no co-pays for most things including pregnancy/birth. People in rural areas can also struggle to access healthcare, Texas for instance has a severe shortage of doctors- just under half of counties have no specialists, 35 have no doctor at all.Q

“and those on benefits would have some kind of exemption card so they wouldn't lose out on healthcare because of poverty.“ under THIS govt? 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Aye right!!

We’ve already got loads of people wrongly being fined/charged for nhs services and prescriptions because they can’t even sort the mess out re UC and those who are eligible for certain services and prescriptions to be free being able to prove that!

I have no doubt if we moved to a 3 tier system (private, paid state and free at point of use state provided healthcare) that the most vulnerable would be the ones to be disadvantaged.

“It's from those confident (rightly or wrongly) that they will never be the ones to lose everything and go bankrupt because they or their child gets cancer or some other serious condition.” Absolutely, certain people seem to arrogantly think “it’ll never be me or mine”

But you never know what’s around the corner.

At 30 I was fit, healthy, working full time no problem. By 35 I was disabled (car crash) and seriously mentally ill (not just the car crash but that was “final straw”)

Also at this point dds genetic disability was as yet undiagnosed but symptoms ramping up, wasn’t diagnosed until she was 12, I couldn’t have predicted the problems we’d have there either.

The nhs isn’t perfect, far from. But it’s been seriously underfunded and under resourced/supported for several years now OF COURSE thats going to have a detrimental effect, and I also agree there are issues with poor management, medical misogyny and other prejudices, short sighted policies, inadequate buildings and equipment etc.

But I still don’t think a 3 tier system is the answer.

Instead it needs to be properly supported and the issues with management etc addressed, which would still need sorted even if we moved to a 3 tier system.

I have experienced other healthcare systems BUT from a position of relative privilege as I didn’t have to cover the costs, they may seem to be better if experienced in this way which is how many Brit’s do as few brits are living in other countries as unemployed indigents. So they end up with rose tinted view of those other healthcare systems.

But I also have friends/family who are long term emigrants and much more aware of the failures of the healthcare systems in the countries in which they are now living.

“Refusal to refer for treatment, refusal to give flu vaccine to at risk groups” both those issues are directly linked to lack of funding.

“When we had to visit the doctors with our youngest while on holiday in America we were seen, diagnosed and back at our hotel with antibiotics within 90 minutes.” Because your insurance was presumably of good quality and those treating you knew this. Surely you know there are major issues in USA with certain vulnerable groups struggling to access healthcare?

All of you who have said you’d be happy to pay to receive a better service, does that include being happy to pay more taxes or higher levels of NI to improve the service for EVERYONE?

ChocolateTeapot - the concern about the tories considering a USA system is NOT a lie, there are very good reasons why some of us believe it to be the case. A significant number of tories have shares in USA health insurance, pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies, they have been fairly openly discussing with these companies the possibility of using them. They HAVEN’T been doing this with healthcare experts from other countries to anything like the same extent if at all.

It’s also a fallacy that the nhs is the only completely state provided healthcare system other countries have them too they’re just not called NHS so I’m also suspicious of people who blindly claim the nhs is wonderful and the only system of social healthcare that exists!

MrsAmaretto - whereabouts in Scotland are you? And which services are you generally trying to access? Because I’m in Scotland too having experienced both English and Scots Nhs systems. In some ways the Scots system is better but certainly in recent years in some ways it is worse. I am seriously mentally ill and was dumped by the mh service in April (I’ve yet to receive an explanation as to why!) I’m currently fighting with my gp to have those services which I desperately need reinstated. I’ve been left languishing on a medication which isn’t working, which is supposed to be monitored (not just mh side but because it can cause problems for certain organs so I’m SUPPOSED to get 6 monthly blood tests) and which has major withdrawal (again physical as well as mental, dangerously so) issues so I can’t just stop taking. I’ve also had issues with poor Gynae services in Scotland and they ain’t that great in England!

They obviously haven't lived in the USA! They also think that American medicine is like in the glossy dramas, rather than poor people dying because they can't afford insulin

We have moved around the world a bit and so have quite a few of our friends. Nobody wants an American style health system but everybody is in agreement that the NHS is a holy cow and not nearly as wonderful as people in the UK believe.

A European style contribution based system makes sense. The best healthcare my family ever got was in Switzerland. Expensive, but affordable.

It's a 'grass is always greener' mentality. It doesn't matter what model they use, there will still be some people unhappy and a number who cannot afford it. IMO the reason the NHS is at breaking point is because it is free. Anything that is free is open to being abused. It is the same the world over. I don't agree with the US system where they leave people die if they can't afford treatment.

My friend has brittle asthma and is currently in America. She messaged me the other day, saying she wasn't well. And if she was in the UK she wouldn't honk twice about going to the doctor. She has travel insurance. I'm a nurse and I the NHS does give excellent care. But it needs to be more forward thinking and stop wasting money on expensive projects that never come to fruition.

I am terrified of the NHS going down the US route.

I have a medical condition that is treated on the NHS for the price of my annual prescription certificate.

There are Facebook pages dedicated to women in the US who have either died or taken their own lives because;
A. They can’t afford the meds
B. Can’t afford insurance because the premiums are too high.
C. There isn’t a specialist who can treat them in their region.

I'm in the US, it's truly terrible. We just don't go to the doctors because a lot of issues just don't justify the $100 a visit. And honestly, the GP hours are way less convenient than in the UK so if you need something out of hours you go to Urgent Care which is double the price. The quality is no better, they just try to throw more tests or procedures at you than you'd get in the UK.

I've just returned to the UK after 13 years in Belgium, where the health care is excellent and paid for by insurance, with the govt contributing some.

If I needed physio, then I could go and see the physio of my choice..no need to wait for the NHS to give me an appointment. If I needed an x ray, I could toddle off to the local x ray specialist. I saw a cardiologist at a clinic founded by local GPs..so less pressure on the hospitals. I could book online to see my GP, no receptionist or practice nurses. It's system that works, and is the main thing that I will miss.

I don't think anyone on MN advocates the American system - I have never seen this.

I don't think the US system is one we'd want to import, but I also think there are issues in the NHS that need resolving, and not all of them are down to money.

I do think in this country it's difficult to have a constructive debate about it, as any criticism leads to suggestions that you either want to sell it off to the US or you just aren't grateful enough.

There's massive waste and inefficiency in the NHS and I don't think free at the point of use is necessarily the best way to run it. We should take a look at the other models in the EU.

I don't think anyone on MN advocates the American system - I have never seen this.

It's the typical loaded assumption, this narrative has come straight from Momentum to their activists.

There is a reason why there has been shock at GE results on MN since 2010, it isn't because of conservative voters, 'grass routes' targeting by momentum has MN firmly in the grasp.

NHS needs reform, 'MN' in general looks to European countries as being something to replicate until it gets to the muddy waters of healthcare and benifits, yet it is still considered the UK is some backwater.

A GE and Brexit on MN has become a future data point as to Orwell being right with ivory tower socialism.

I do believe that the British model of healthcare is fairer than the American system. And yet, in spite of the fact that more people are covered under the British system, a lower percentage of women die of breast cancer in the U.S. So I find that troubling. Is a system like the NHS not well set up for more specialized health problems at times? `

Durgasarrow the problem is that the NHS is completely overwhelmed and breaking under the pressure. That's why many medical outcomes are better in the US or other European country.

Even with a massive injection of funds (and where is that going to come from?) the NHS is not sustainable in its current form. Mainly because the ageing population makes it too expensive to offer the same level of care as it used to. It's simply far more expensive to meet the health needs of older people.

I think it's because they're rich and healthy and don't want to subsidise the poor and unhealthy is the bottom line.

Interesting question op

I do think a lot of people are sick of how bad the NHS is atm and lets not beat around the bush it is quite shit 😬

However it is due to consistent deliberate underfunding rather than the actual "NHS" itself if that makes sense .
Sadly too many can't see this

Also I never get the argument that we can't afford the NHS so should move towards an insurance based system. THAT WILL COST MORE!

The NHS in its present format will never have enough money regardless of whichever political party is in government because health needs are fundamentally never ending. As soon as we have enough money to fund everything then something else will be developed which needs more funding for example the new CF drug Orkambi. Saving the lives of 22 week premature babies and 80+years old is expensive and the majority of them will have long term health and social needs. Treating diseases such as diabetes cancer and cystic fibrosis mean people live longer but can develop other medical problems which are again long term and expensive. Treating medical problems which doesn’t kill you such as infertility and gender reassignment are areas which swallow up huge resources. So it’s disingenuous when people rant on about how the NHS is underfunded because until medicine stops evolving there will never be enough money to treat all the things everyone wants.

The reason the US healthcare system keeps being mentioned is that the proposed US-UK trade deal would move the NHS closer to the US healthcare model.

The UK spends less per capita on healthcare than most other developed countries. According to OECD data from 2016 (the most recent year available), the UK spent $4,192 USD per capita that year.

Let’s compare that to some of the other countries mentioned on this thread. France spent $4,600 on healthcare per capita. Australia spent $4,708, Belgium $4,840, the Netherlands $5,385, Germany $5,551 and Switzerland $7,919. The bloated US system spent $9,892 per capita and the USA still manages to have a significantly lower average life expectancy than the UK.

Other countries spending more per capita on healthcare than the UK are Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Sweden, Austria, Denmark, Canada, Japan and Iceland.

You can see more data at stats.oecd.org. I’d have liked to post a table, but the formatting went awry.

AlphaBravoCharlieDelta, there’s a graph on the Wikipedia page on per capita healthcare spending that breaks this down for you.

Either way, the NHS isn’t getting enough money. And it’s unfair to compare it with the other healthcare systems mentioned on this thread without acknowledging that.

It is not just ‘old’ people the NHS will not be able to cope in future with the huge numbers of fat people. I know, fat shaming etc. Someone I know who is a nurse in a private hospital was telling me about the number of obese people who the NHS pays to have stomach stapling, etc. This is not sustainable.

I have known people who have had these procedures and they do not work, I cannot understand why people keep killing themselves with food and expect the NHS to save them.

This alone will destroy the NHS with back problems, knee problems let alone diabetes.

AlphaBravoCharlieDelta, there’s a graph on the Wikipedia page on per capita healthcare spending that breaks this down for you.

Here's the narrative for that graph:

While the U.S. has much higher total spending as a share of its economy, its public expenditures alone are in line with other countries. In 2016, the US spent about 8.5% of its GDP on health out of public funds –essentially equivalent to the average of the other comparable countries. However, private spending in the U.S. is much higher than any comparable country; 8.8% of GDP in the U.S., compared to 2.7% on average for other nations.

What is not clear from this is that government expenditures in the US are primarily from providing full insurance coverage for about 100 million people (about 30% of the population) through Medicare (for the elderly), Medicaid (for low income people) and Veterans Administration healthcare, as well as subsidies for low income people buying private insurance under the ACA (Obamacare).

I have private insurance that the government pays nothing towards. So the per capita cost implies that it's spread around evenly when it is not.

The US system is also wildly inefficient but if you have insurance the care is generally very good with no waiting lists.

I honestly think as someone who has been very slim and is now overweight that the obesity issue is not being dealt with correctly. There are many factors to this it’s not just personal choice/responsibility although that’s one of the factors.

There are factors outside the person and the nhs which I won’t go into here.

But within the Nhs itself there are huge issues with not identifying and treating conditions which are known to CAUSE increased appetite/slower metabolism.

I know people who genuinely ate very little because they had poor appetites and were still overweight and were dismissed for years/decades before a condition that caused metabolic issues was diagnosed, I’m particularly thinking of the very poor attitude to/treatment of thyroid issues