AIBU to get a bit fucked off at having to protect the NHS?

[Santaclauswhosthat]

This is a healthcare system I've paid into all my life. I don't think everyone who works in it is a hero and the vast majority of them aren't underpaid. It's ranked 16th in the world and has the worst cancer outcomes for any developed country. It's not very good. Nonetheless it's the only healthcare system open to me right now. But I can't access it. My operation had been cancelled and I can't get a consultant appointment. The GPs aren't seeing patients face to face. I've already had one tumour removed that was on the turn. I'm worried that I may have another. I have no way of finding out if this is the case. A family member has already died of covid 19 after being denied treatment for three days during which repeated calls to the ambulance service were made whereupon his mother was told she should only ring again if his lips turned blue. He is dead. Right now. The NHS didn't protect him. It isn't protecting me either. What is the point of the NHS, exactly? Most clinics are closed or running at half mast. GPs aren't seeing anyone. NHS staff get shopping hours and free food and fuck knows what else and we are all dying protecting them.

And you will pay health insurance whether you use it or not

I thought the German system was "better" because so many are paying insurance?

I think the hope is that the public will pay a lot more into it via a national insurance scheme and it will be more affluent.
Otherwise it's really just the same.

They only pay for insurance if working, pensioners pay also. Other than that, the government pays the insurer on your behalf.

Good luck with that with the Tories

The “I’m alright Jack” attitude on here astounds me. Just because you could afford insurance doesn’t mean everyone can. Even if insurance was £1 a week (which of course it never would be), that is still too much for some people.

Minty I can't afford insurance either

but clearly this is what the government are planning to do.

It can be good and bad in equal measure: had experience of both as most people on here would have done I suppose. They do get it wrong , but 10 years of austerity hasn't helped matters and all governments use it as a football.
An overhaul of managers might be worth looking into after this crisis is a bit less urgent.
Every time I read an nhs thread they are blamed more than anyone else! Lots of people are very highly paid and the ones doing the actual work are not. Changing that might work or making cleaning in house and not contracted out to other agencies who cut corners , also might be a start too.
Its not perfect , but I'm glad we have it.

There's a huge difference between different countries though in how the insurance premiums are calculated, taken and what is covered.

I'd be happy to go for a system like the German or Belgian ones but in NO way anything like in the US.

It's not like private health care in the UK which is only for the wealthy and then doesn't cover pre-existing conditions.

In Germany and Belgium, ALL conditions are covered. your premiums depend on your income.

So I don’t see how that is much different from the way we fund our healthcare then, we just spend less on healthcare than they do which is more likely to be the reason we have poorer service. Just because services are privately funded doesn’t automatically make them better than public funded ones. The privatisation of parole board services has been a disaster for example.

So in the hallowed land that is, apparently, Belgium and Germany - if your income is zero, do you pay zero insurance? So someone who has not one single spare euro can still have a triple heart bypass or a stint on the ECMO machine , despite paying nothing?
And the people on low income who only pay tiny premiums - how are their costs covered? Is it by the higher premiums paid by the richer people?
Hmm, strange, that looks remarkably like income tax.....

Or is it that the really poor people (the ones who can’t feed themselves and have to go to food banks, or the homeless) actually can’t access health care?

The people who cry out for insurance systems are invariably the ones who can afford it.

I remember when the health service in the (EU) country where I grew up was changed from a publically-funded one to an insurance-based system. By all accounts, outcomes are better now, but the % of GDP spent on healthcare has also gone up. There was no reduction in income tax and people now have to spend up to £100/month on (basic) health insurance. If you're on a low income the state will pay (part of) your insurance premium, but anyone earning more than +/- £26,000/year is expected to pay the full amount. It'd be interesting to know if a similar outcome could have been achieved if the system had remained publically-funded, but through an equivalent increase in income tax.

YANBU at all. I am so sorry for what you have experienced and ho little support you and your family have received.

My father is terminally ill and caught the Coronavirus whilst he was an inpatient. We have had a nightmare. The hospital lost his hearing aids and , as he is also partially blind, it has been impossible to explain to him what has been going on. His landlord has refused to let him return home or even pick up any of his belongings (he has no access to money, clothes , shoes, anything). I have said he can come and live with me temporarily as he literally has nowhere else- the hospital have said he cant got to a hospice as there are no beds available. We live in a one bed room flat so it will be impossible to shield him or us. We will however need help - he previously had carers as he is hemiplegic and now isn't eating, drinking or talking. He is in extreme pain. Some of the hospital staff (ward manage and discharge co-ordinator) have been extremely aggressive and rude. I know they are under pressure but this situation isn't easy for any of us. I have tried to speak to my GP about registering my father as a patient and getting palliative care - after days of trying I eventually got through. Despite the hospital saying my father is no longer infectious they said neither they, the palliative care or district nurses would come out. If he is in paid we just have to deal with it. I'm not a medical practitioner and , as its my father, find it very hard not to be emotional. We shouldn't be asked to provide palliative care. We need help.
Im sorry but I dont think you are being unreasonable at all. I think parts of the NHS have been unreasonable in how they are treating the very sick. I know its not the thing to say right now but honestly walk in our shoes for even a couple of hours and see how you feel.

sorry should have said they (the GP, palliative care and district nurse ) have refused to come out. Nor can we get any carers. If he is pain I have been told that we just need to deal with it.

"So someone who has not one single spare euro can still have a triple heart bypass or a stint on the ECMO machine , despite paying nothing?"

I can't answer that question for Belgium but in Germany, yes, that person would get a triple heart bypass or a stint on the ECMO machine.

The bottom line with the NHS is that it runs on the goodwill of those working there who, most of the time, make do with what they have in terms of available staff and resources.
It is a chaotic, oversized monster gulping a lot of money but nobody in the political arena would ever have the courage to restructure it properly.
I don’t disagree with you, yes a lot of them are not underpaid.
Not sure about heroes. That is stretching it a bit but I sure am very, very grateful to a lot of professionals from the NHS and I highly respect the nurses, midwives, consultants etc. Pretty much everyone who’s trained to do the jobs there. I don’t respect the NHS itself.
In our family, we’ve had the option of using private care over many years whilst contributing to the NHS not a negligible amount through taxes. Using the private option is obviously quicker and more convenient but it also takes a bit of strain from the NHS. More than happy to do it whilst we can afford to. But we couldn’t live without the centralised national system because emergency help (for ex. car accident or 999 emergency) would come from NHS. And also certain private treatment utilises NHS resources. They have the more complex setups which make the difference between life and death. I also think NHS hospitals research centres are very, very valuable and are a national asset.( the same as university research centres).
So I want the NHS to exist, am happy to contribute when I can, as much as I can afford to, but I think the way it operates is crap. They need a proper strategy team to reorganise everything and cut out the dead wood, invest in proper coordinated, synchronised IT and allow the medical staff to do their medical and care jobs without the added stress of worrying about resources and admin things.
And I think having the option to privately part or fully pay for certain treatments should be made available directly through the NHS. And there should be heavy fines for missed appointments. And they should make everything smaller and even more regional. And they should get rid of middle management and reduce top management and subcontract a lot of the strategising to companies who know how to do it. And, and, and... Nothing will ever change. It’s quite shocking how badly functioning the NHS is. Without its medical people it would have vanished decades ago.

@Xenia you do realise that you will still have to pay 20% income tax and then pay for healthcare on top of that if it was privatised.. right... your surely not that oblivious?

Taxes "pay" for a lot more then just the NHS.. well supposedly they pay for a lot, but then money dosent seem to be going anywhere its supposed to anymore.. apart from lining the pockets of the rich

Mintychoc1 yes in Germany you can always access healthcare regardless of income. The standards are much better here and since moving here nearly a decade ago I’ve found it to be far, far better than the NHS. In general, it’s a better run country.

But the insurance is ring fenced to be spent only on health care. Not defence, not education etc. It means it’s a more targeted approach. I think it’s the elephant in the room we have to tackle. The nhs cannot continue to be the sacred cow it currently is. Of course some people can pay more. Lots of retired people are not poor either. I’m sure we could have a better health service with review and targeted money. Not just more money into a black hole.

In germany.
You pay 7.3% of your monthly salary (legal requirment), your employer matches that contribution and then the government contributes approximately 70% of the money needed to run their health care system.
This already is not feasible in the UK as many small businesses would not be able to afford these additional costs alongside current businesses taxes and rates plus wages. Plus it relies on the huge contribution the German government makes to the healthcare system, which the UK has already shown it has form for contributing as little as possible thus meaning the quality of UK healthcare would not rise anyway.. on top of that you would still need to pay income tax to fund county counsels, schools, infrastructure, benefit systems etc etc. So you end up paying a lot more and getting less..

Personally I adore Germany, but there way of running the country dosent work due to the stark differences in how they run their government compares to how the UK government is run.

It is a chaotic, oversized monster gulping a lot of money but nobody in the political arena would ever have the courage to restructure it properly.

Isn't that why small bits are being hived off? Such as the way Specsavers can now do hearing tests and dispense hearing aids, under the NHS. I had my first hearing aids via the GP and local hospitals and it was a 9 month pain in the neck with different appointments in different places, lost referral letters, cancelled appts, etc. Such a refreshing improvement the second time when it was all done in one appointment at our High Street Specsavers.

The politicians are scared of making big changes, so they're just chipping away around the edges.

And let's not forget BoJo hates anything EU but loves America and Trump. UK is already more similar to America (rich get richer, poorest suffer) in many ways then European countries and realistically due to the current structure of UK government, taxes, funding the only feasible system it could move to would be a American one, otherwise the entire country would need a overhaul which wont happen as it would cost the rich too much money.

So be careful what you wish for..

Plus it relies on the huge contribution the German government makes to the healthcare system, which the UK has already shown it has form for contributing as little as possible

Care and health take up nearly half govt spending, far higher than education, defence, etc. How can you say "contributing as little as possible?" Blair/Brown trebled spending on NHS. The problem is waste and inefficiency, not pound notes.

I would be happy with a germany style system if we had a government who could implement it correctly ensuring no one was disadvantaged but the past ten years have shown us if nothing else we cannot trust the government to do it in a way which dosent only benefit the most affluent.

Likewise I would love to have a adequately funded and supported NHS which can flourish as the system it was developed to be.

During these type of threads we never seem to hear from hospital management. Why is money wasted? Why are poor staff not dealt with? Why are computer systems so outdated? Why are appointment letters sent out as hard copies? This is basic stuff.