How mich do you think an inhaler is in US ?

[Barsh]

Go on...guess.

@notangelinajolie loads of people have quoted how much they have/do pay on this thread. One person quoted $2000 a month for a family of four. I’m sure your National Insurance isn’t that much a month. Plus you have to take into account the excess you’ll have to pay in the US.
I’m happy to pay my National Insurance to not have to pay to see a DR.

Nobody at all is suggesting introducing a US style healthcare system in the U.K. I’m no supporter of the Conservative party, so I am reluctant to defend them, but that is not and has never been their policy

Of course it’s not their official policy, but there are several senior Tories on record saying that the NHS should be privatised.

Regardless, there is no proper discussion about how healthcare should be organised, so the US style system is exactly that toward which the country is sleepwalking.

Over the last 10 years the NHS in England has been fragmented. Bits of it have been sold off and some of the less desirable bits of it have been stuck back together by Dr Frankenstein. It has also been starved of funding for staff and infrastructure. Waiting times have soared and rationing has been introduced. And the Tories are lying about extra staff and new buildings.

All of this will lead to more people taking out more and more private health insurance, which will enable the Tories to continue to wind down the NHS because their voters and members are unaffected.

And there we’ll be: a two tier American style system, without any need to make any unpopular manifesto statements. Unless people wake up now.

My friend in the US has insurance (from her job in a state run school so you'd think it would be decent) - she still has to pay for some of her treatment. She has something like a 3,000 dollar minimum claim so if she's been healthy all year then gets sick in December she has a strong incentive not to go to the doctor or get treatment. Surely that can't be good from a public health pov, let alone for her personally.

I have private healthcare in the UK - just under £50 a month for 3 GP appointments a year and unlimited referrals for both dd and I. Pretty much everything apart from existing conditions is covered.

My aunt and uncle pay $3700 pm for their family of 4 and some conditions aren’t covered and they have to pay an excess. It’s insanity.

I have had to buy an epipen privately in the UK. It was £35. How can they be $800 in the US

Market forces.

When DS1 was taken ill with a bad chest in the US, we were prescribed those steroid tablets you dissolve in water (prednisolone). The course of tablets cost $3. I was faintly amused at this, having been told how much more expensive these things were in the US, because of course in the UK that would have been £9 for a prescription

Prednisolone is cheap. Very cheap. You can argue about whether it’s fair to have to pay a flat charge of £9 for a prescription of medicines which cost pennies in the UK, but you’ll be less amused when you’re given a bill for many times that amount for a monoclonal antibody to treat cancer or an autoimmune disease or to save your sight.

Pretty much everything apart from existing conditions is covered

You can use the NHS for your pre-existing conditions and ambulance service/emergency department/ICU care. Your aunt and uncle don’t really have that luxury. Can you imagine the cost of your insurance if you were to cover pre-existing and emergency care?

And the point of this thread?

@WiseUpJanetWeiss exactly. I think an ambulance call out runs to around $2000 in their area. Absolutely madness.

People will avoid calling an ambulance to their detriment because they think about cost before live saving treatment. I can’t imagine living like that.

my US friends with insurance who had straightforward births typically had to pay $3000.

@Sparkesyi remember watching an American show and a guest was telling viewers get your medical bill, query each item and haggle, $4 for a tongue depressor, offer them 50cents, plasters offer 25c etc...

They charge you to have skin to skin contact with your newborn after a csection.

If there was ever a reason to argue against a US style healthcare system, that’s it surely.

As a type 1 diabetic, I’m terrified of the NHS being like the US

I am also wondering, if a salbutamol asthma inhaler costs £1.50 here (in the UK,) then why is the same inhaler $200 to $300 in America? (£150 to £225?)

'Market forces' my arse.

It's all as shady as fuck, and someone is making a fuck ton of money out of people, and their vulnerability, and poor health.

I don't understand how they get away with it, but I do know America is one of the last places in the world I would want to live, with such atrocious health care - especially for the poor/working class people.

I also know a 'U.S. type healthcare system' is NEVER going to happen here. Even though Corbynites keep pushing this bullshit as 'fact.'

Fumiko Ladd Chino is now an oncologist who specialises in 'financial toxicity' in cancer patients. She and her husband had health insurance when he was diagnosed with cancer - and it only took a month before he exceeded what the insurers would pay for drugs. Her story is just heartbreaking.

Why are Ameticans putting up with this? They are being ripped off. Even those who can afford it must be agog at these inflated prices?

The reason costs are so different in the US is because there is no national level negotiation of costs. So in the UK, broadly speaking, an epipen or a colposcopy costs £X, give or take. In the US, there are no regulated cost controls on medicines or services in the private system. If hospital A wants to charge $400 for an epipen and hospital B wants to charge $700, why would hospital C charge $70. Everyone makes more money that way and supply and demand doesn’t really come into play because medicines aren’t like cars. People either need them and have to pay for them, or they don’t buy them and get ill/die. So it’s a system set up maximise profits and not health of individuals.

Ironically, as much as many Americans don’t like the idea of single payer healthcare (loss of freedom, don’t want to pay into a centralised pot for the benefit of others, etc), they broadly love Medicare (which is a single payer system for over 65s). They also love the VA system which is similar ish for veterans. My mum and stepdad (they’re American and live in the US) hate the idea of universal healthcare, but go on and on about how they deserve Medicare and how great it is. They don’t understand it’s the same thing because they buy into the same rubbish as everyone here about ‘socialised medicine’ taking away all their rights. Meanwhile everyone in the UK who wants private healthcare can get it - if they can afford it -can buy it, but there is also a great system that largely works for everyone else.

Private healthcare isn’t a magic speedy process where everyone gets what they want when they want it. I lived in the US for 30 years. I didn’t even know same day appointments were a thing until I moved to the UK! I’d always had to wait at least 2 weeks for any appointment. It can be 6-8 weeks for consultant care. My mum had to delay starting chemo a month because her insurance needed to pre-approve the cost before she could start. Honestly, it’s not better healthcare in most cases, and it’s expensive and bureaucratic.

Yes yes, it’s not like the care is SOOOO much better because you are paying for it.
A friend of mine had a premature baby who came home on oxygen (pretty common for 28 weekers and under). They quickly ran through their oxygen allowance from insurance so then had to pay out of pocket so their child could basically breathe. WTF.
There are horror stories online of American female doctors saying how when they had stillbirths or neonatal deaths in the delivery rooms, they were charged thousands for the resuscitation team and the birth because the baby didn’t qualify for their mother’s insurance. I think it was 6000 dollars for a stillbirth not covered by insurance.
As I said earlier, it is a mindset. People just don’t get it. It’s simply too alien a concept.

The ones that one of my DCs has apparently costs the NHS about £85 a month so maybe £100-£120 in the US for the patient.

[[https://www.dontwasteabreath.com/view/inhaler%E2%80%94costs UK Inhaler costs]

Link fail

UK inhaler costs

Well, they'll be a lot of us unable to afford insurance so we'll just die.
One way of solving the over population problem.

So all the people voting conservative must be bloody rich to be able to afford this. I suppose fewer companies will provide healthcare insurance too as it will cost them too much.

Like an idiot I did my DNA too, so anytime they want to access anything hereditary that's it fucked. The payments will be immense for those who've done this.

All I've worked out from this thread on inhaler costs is that my UK inhalers cost NHS £1.50 and £2.50 respectively but I pay £18 for the pair of them, which, given I also pay NI and tax, pisses me off a little bit.

Market forces' my arse

It's all as shady as fuck, and someone is making a fuck ton of money out of people, and their vulnerability, and poor health

Well yes, that’s market forces in healthcare. If there’s little to no price regulation the price is as much as the drug companies can get away with charging the sick.

I also know a 'U.S. type healthcare system' is NEVER going to happen here. Even though Corbynites keep pushing this bullshit as 'fact

Why is it bullshit? Why are you so certain?

And I’m no Corbynite.

I saw this! I knew the coat of ambulance and Epipens because I have family there - one horrible allergic reaction and you are the best part of $1000 worse off!

Re us citizens being '' wary '' of the state... Isn't this the big argument why they still have guns?

To march on capitol Hill if necessary?

Rubbish about the NHS. Infact I see corbyn as more of a threat as the UK bleeds money and we end up financially paralysed.