To think free healthcare as we know it won't exist in five/ten or so years from now?

[flashbac]

And the NHS bill going through parliament is a confirmation of that?
Proposals are that:

Private companies will be able to offer services without any tendering processes (we know from the PPE fiasco how bad that is for the taxpayer),

the statutory duty to provide hospital services will be removed

private (FOR PROFIT) corporations to play a huge part in shaping virtually every aspect of our healthcare.

There's a demo about it today.

The NHS is now beyond reproach and criticism. Having 100% free healthcare for 60m+ people to the standard that's expected is not feasible.
There is a disconnect between the cost of providing even basic healthcare and what people's perception of the cost is.
If something is free it looses its value.

Another thing I question re private healthcare is how people are supposed to afford it. We have very housing costs in this country & a decade of wage stagnation, even those earning well may struggle.

How many people could afford to pay over $4,000 every single year of their life to stay alive? Thats before we consider other associated health issues that those of us with type one diabetes are vulnerable to, plus how much will annual check ups of sight, feet etc cost?

Not many.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

I suspect that charging like that would be more expensive than direct taxation from wages. Therefore those that can least afford it, pay more as the additional recovery costs need to be covered.

I'm pretty left-wing, but I got Benenden Health cover for me and my three kids about two ago principally because of the difficulty of getting a GP appointment at our surgery. I work 50+ hrs a week and don't yet drive so I can't take just any appointment (I pay out a fortune in public transport and taxi fares for various hospital appointments as it is). It's tighten my sphincter when it comes out each month but I've had to use it once and it was so fucking smooth it removed any lingering doubts about whether to keep paying the month dd.

If you can afford a fancy phone contract. You can afford healthcare,
£50 p/m

And I’m not saying you should. I’m just saying it’s doable for most people

I love how you think health insurance is £50 a month.

Heres a wee search from Google on American health insurance (which will give the Tories who have fingers in the right pies at of dosh)

"In 2020, the average national cost for health insurance is $456 for an individual and $1,152 for a family per month"

Hardly £50

a lot of dosh

@Taliskerskye

If you can afford a fancy phone contract. You can afford healthcare, £50 p/m

Comprehensive health insurance for a healthy adult who doesn’t smoke and doesn’t have any health conditions is around £300-350 per month, on top of that you have a yearly co-pay.

If you can afford a fancy phone contract.You can afford healthcare,£50 p/m

Which provider do you recommend? I'd like to see what it covers

@Taliskerskye

If you can afford a fancy phone contract. You can afford healthcare, £50 p/m

My fancy phone contract is £20 per month. Couldn’t get an eye test for that let alone fancy private insurance! Private health insurance is way, way out of our league.

The NHS as we know it is doomed but its also a poison chalice and whoever is HS at the time will be reluctant to change anything major as whenever any changes are proposed pitch folks are out and its career ending. Look at Andrew Langsley i'm not getting into whether his changes were right or not but when he made changes it cost him his job because a baying mob wanted blood.

I genuinely fear the only way the NHS will change is when it has completely collapsed as trying to change it before only seems to end in career ending pushback and i doubt any MP will step up to the plate to do that only to have their career ended as a result.

I love how you think health insurance is £50 a month.

Someone said on another thread that no families should be struggling if a parent dies or becomes incapacitated because it's easy to get cheap insurance that mitigates any financial impact of a death/injury/illness.

Someone asked what 🦄 insurance the poster used that offered that & unsurprisingly the poster didn't even have insurance but was sure it was available 😆

I'm in the Netherlands and my insurance costs 126 euro per month and my husband's 100 euro. Our DD goes free so in total 190 GBP a month. At first it felt strange to pay for health care, but honestly I was shocked by how much better the health care is here.

I can go online and book an appointment with my GP tomorrow. I had a routine cardiologist appointment which was within a month of requesting one. I had two EEGs, an ultrasound, two different blood tests and a conversation with the cardiologist and I was out of the door within an hour and a half. Similar investigations in the UK had me spend the whole day in hospital. That did cost me 380 euros for my deductible, but if I need any further health care this year it would be free. People on low incomes get a subsidy for their health care costs.

@CuteOrangeElephant so you get a discount for dual insurance ? Only asking as I make that 126+100= 226.
Confused.

@Bargebill19 she quoted in euros and converted to sterling 🙂

@pubble

We are going to have to address the fact we have an ageing population & the burden that comes with that but no one wants to "pay" n

We have it in all directions IMO. More disabled children surviving leading to lifetime medical care needs. More need for mental health etc provision for all walks of life. This doesn’t even count public health provision like regular check-ups.

And the truth is - there are clear efficiency gains.
For a developed country the majority of trusts run on PAPER records. Which even my third world country’s hospitals don’t do.
No online appointment booking, needing people to ring up. All of these are basics.

But the worst as people mentioned is political will.

Sometimes I feel like quitting my job and joining politics so I can fix all this annoying shit.

@CastawayQueen I agree there a number of strains but the issue with an ageing population is more general strain on the healthcare service & a smaller tax paying population.

I think prescriptions should be mean tested

[quote Sidge]@Bargebill19 she quoted in euros and converted to sterling 🙂[/quote]
Ah thank you missed that. No wonder I was confused. 😊

[quote pubble]@CastawayQueen I agree there a number of strains but the issue with an ageing population is more general strain on the healthcare service & a smaller tax paying population.

I think prescriptions should be mean tested [/quote]
Ah yes agreed.
Also I think people who can pay for their care should.
I think younger people do already - when I’ve received NHS prescriptions have had to pay

It shouldn’t be ‘free’ healthcare but ‘affordable’ healthcare. And I say this as someone who’s a potential high earner. The issue is that means testing is a lot of admin and income doesn’t always correlate to more disposable spending money.

Also I find people who need healthcare being able to leave lots of money to their children obscene. Your money is for your life and if you have that much extra everyone else’s shouldn’t be paying for you.

The Canadian system is a cross between private and state

Oh and Michael got a new job over here so we get to move to the city in a few weeks 😀

Once you’re actually in hospital it’s all free but if you need an ambulance you have to pay for it (about $150). Prescriptions are quite expensive so most people get a basic insurance policy if you need regular ones but that’s like, $20 a month.

I don't agree the NHS is underfunded. It has huge sums of money thrown at it, it's how those funds are used.

I think part of the trouble with the debate is that the private healthcare offered in the UK at the moment is not a full health service. Maternity services for example aren’t really available unless you go super rich levels and go the The Portland like The Duchess of Cambridge. For a lot of complex or chronic conditions you are turfed off private cover immediately. Degenerative conditions that often affect elderly people which will increase with an aging population are not covered. Something goes wrong in an operation in a private hospital and the NHS will pick up the pieces.

An American system terrifies me as in theory you could be bankrupted if you have the (already) bad luck to get really sick.

A lot of Europe and New Zealand/Australia seem to have good systems, though I don’t know how they work to be able to comment on them properly. However, there is something wonderful about the concept of free at the point of use which would be such a shame to lose.

I think as a country we also need to properly look at everything that feeds into the NHS- preventative healthcare, social care, the welfare state, and working conditions of NHS staff. It feels like the idea of a welfare state to provide a safety net for people (which must have a massive impact on mental health) or it not being ideal for doctors to work whilst absolutely exhausted are quaint ideas from years gone by at the moment.

@pubble

We are going to have to address the fact we have an ageing population & the burden that comes with that but no one wants to "pay" n

Absolutely. Someone upthread said the NHS will become only free for pensioners, children and those on benefits - keeping it free for children and the elderly would mean it was barely worth charging. Every time I go to hospital or the GP I'm struck by how dominant little children (usually the reason I'm there) or the elderly are. I went to the eye clinic at the hospital recently - which was actually for me, for once - and was the only patient under pension age out of about 40 people; I'd say around half were clearly over 80. Which is in many ways a wonderful sign of progress - there are all these older people needing treatment now because we've done so well at extending life spans - but it leaves the NHS in such a fundamentally different position from when it was created and it's increasingly clear that the original model can't adapt to this.

Sometimes I feel like quitting my job and joining politics so I can fix all this annoying shit.

If you do you might find it's all a bit harder than you currently realise...