To ask if you have private health insurance?

[CherryValley5]

Do you have it? Would you get it?

Having just received DD’s (eye watering) PHI renewal it struck me that 10 years ago it would not have even entered my mind to insure a teenager, nowadays it would feel like borderline neglect if I cancelled her policy and instead made her sit on endless NHS waiting lists. I am insured too through work and would never take another job that didn’t offer it. Just sitting here in disbelief that something I would’ve called a luxury not too long ago now feels like an essential for quality of life. It’s so depressing!

This! With bells on. 👏👏

Ah, the age-old Mumsnet 'your reading comprehension is terrible' retort. It never fails to appear when someone simple doesn't like what someone else is saying – and it's always entirely meaningless.

It's OK – you can pay for a luxury. It doesn't mean it's not what it is. I didn't say you should have waited a year in pain – but those who could afford what you did (again, the majority of the nation) would have had no option but to wait a year in pain. Again – I'm not saying you should have, I likely would have done the same, but it being expensive enough to not be obtainable for the majority means it is, in fact, a luxury. If you don't think it is expensive, then that's completely relative to what money you have.

There are many definitions of the word luxury – 'a state of comfort, obtained at great expense', 'a desirable item which is expensive and difficult to obtain' – all of which fit the bill to describe the affordability of private healthcare. The root of the word also means in excess to what is already provided – and it most definitely is an excess to what is already provided. You might not like what is provided, you might find yourself if a lesser state to what is provided – but you have the luxury of not having to accept it.

I suggest you make your peace with the definition and stop seeing the definition itself as an attack.

And pigs might fly...

I could have written your post. My experience of an NHS psychiatric hospital was nothing short of horrific. Those places need seriously investigating.

Yes through dh work

I don't see anything as an attack or otherwise - but you're not making a coherent argument.
All you keep repeating is 'the majority of the population can't afford health insurance - therefore it's a luxury'. You also classify timely treatment as an 'excess' solely because some people have no choice.

I however think that the latter is a necessity. The fact some can't afford it doesn't mean that it's a luxury.

And as part of a bigger picture it's a sorry state of affairs. It's not acceptable.

Of course it's an excess. They do have a choice – wait or pay to not wait.

The fact some most can't afford it doesn't mean that it's a luxury – there, I corrected it for you. And that is definitive of a luxury.

You also seem to confuse the luxury of using a private service vs the luxury of being able to afford it – those are two different things.

For goodness sake get a grip. Some people, in fact far too many these days can’t afford food or heating - by your definition these apparently are now luxuries too?

I will repeat this again for comprehension purposes. If the only alternative is waiting years on often substandard care in bad conditions then what is luxurious about being forced to pay for access to timely, at times life changing healthcare? At this point I have no idea what I pay national insurance for as I haven’t been able to properly access NHS services in years. Would you rather that people wallowed on NHS waiting lists for years, deteriorating, 0 quality of life, unable to work and becoming a burden on the state? Private healthcare used to be a luxury, reserved only for the very wealthy - these days that couldn’t be further from the truth. The fact that many private hospitals now have their own waiting lists is further evidence of this. Payment plans to pay for hip and knee replacements are becoming the norm. I’m going to assume that you live in a part of the UK lucky enough to still have low waiting lists and high quality NHS services as you don’t seem to have any concept of just have bad things have got.

I’d love to spend my ‘luxurious’ health insurance premiums on an actual luxury - with £100 more in my account each month I might actually be able to buy clothes that don’t come from a supermarket 🤣

We had it for the family through DH's work. When we went self employed we took out a policy which we used once for a minor opsl for DH both involving a one night stay. A few years later he needed anither 1 night sray op, this time on the NHS, and it was no slower, just in a shared ward rather than a private room. As the prices rose as we got older it became unaffordable for us. Fortunately we didn't have a lot of health issues till the end of working, but they were all health with fairly promptly. DH had two have a fairly major op for a BCC, resulting in most of his nose being cut off and rebuilt, from bits of his ears and his forehead. . A 9 hour op, followed by a 3 hour op, followed by 15 months of weekly follow up. All on the NHS after covid and all done reasonably promptly. Could not have faulted the service at all. Dentist? We still have a NHS dentist, who organised a reduced but effective service through Covid, and have continued. We did have a year when one dentist left, and it took a full year to recruit a replacement. Part of the delay was the length of time it took for her paperwork to go through the process to register her as a NHS dentist, she had recently qualified. The NHS seems to employ thousands of administrators but still take forever to process paperwork. I think PHI is good when you are working, and can't afford time off work if having to wait for treatment. As you get older though it gets very expensive. We have some savings, so if either of us have a painful condition with a long delay, we will pay to go private, if it is quicker. In our experience the care is no different, in fact often the same surgeons working NHS and private, it is the speed of treatment that is the big difference. We had a friend get liver cancer in his 60s, was told by the NHS there was nothing more they could do except palliative care. He went to a private hospital, spent upwards if £30k on an op, that the NHS would not do, and died. So, sometimes the NHS is not as bad as the press would have you believe.

Me too!! I sacrifice things so I can pay for my health insurance.

I literally said about two posts ago that I paid privately for an ENT, so yes, I have experienced facing a long wait for care that I didn’t want to wait for. It was a luxury not to have to wait. More people using a service doesn’t mean it’s not a luxury, and more people doesn’t mean ‘most people’.

And once again, stop confusing incomprehension with someone not agreeing with you.

A depressing sign of the times!

And that's where we have to disagree. Quicker treatment isn't always a luxury.
It is, when someone wants convenience, or the wait time doesn't cause any impact.
It isn't, when it results in significant deterioration in quality of life/health condition.
Waiting 2 weeks Vs a month? The former is a luxury. 2 months Vs a year? Mmm less likely.

Also wanting a private room, better room service etc is obviously 'luxury' private. Paying just to see a consultant more quickly without additional bells and whistles because your condition will worsen otherwise - nope.

Arguing about semantics misses the bigger picture, in that classification as a luxury = adequate NHS provision, private just for people who want extra. It has nothing to do with how many people can afford it (a point you keep returning to).

It obscures the true state of the service and actually, it's those who 'can't' afford health insurance that are impacted by this attitude. It's them that the service needs to improve for.

And has bigger economic impacts we have record numbers of people not in work and claiming benefits, because they can't get adequate medical treatment.

Yes I do, but it's through work so I only pay the tax due on my premium. I have added DH and the children. I think from the top of my head it costs me about 80 a month.

We don't use it that much, but we are very grateful it's there when we need it.

Yet even in dire circumstances it is still out of reach for the majority of the UK = non-affordability = luxury. It is exactly to do with what proportion of people can afford it.

The vast majority of the UK cannot afford a house - hence rentals and mortgages exist. Where do you draw your luxurious line?

You keep repeating your ridiculous argument of the proportion of the population who can afford it - that doesn’t mean that timely access to high quality healthcare (which currently in a lot of cases the NHS cannot provide) isn’t an essential, hence private becomes a necessity and not a luxury. You don’t seem to be able to grasp this.

The situation would be very different if people were simply choosing to pay for a fancier room and a slightly shorter wait. This used to be the case, unfortunately nowadays it is not.

I have cover through work and am also covered under DH's work policy too. We have different providers so I can pick which one too claim on.

I've used mine multiple times including about 60k worth of cancer treatment. Not only does it mean you are treated more quickly, it also makes expensive treatment options a possibility - I had a chemo drug I wouldn't have been offered on the NHS due to cost.

It's something we are factoring in to our retirement plans as we wouldn't want to be without it now.

Hopefully it also saves the NHS some money.

We have Benenden, we have prior meniscal conditions which wouldn't be covered by health insurance but it is a simple back up for tests / scans etc which we can afford, also a dental plan.

Sorry did I read that right? Paying for private health treatment is a 'luxury'!?
Oh yes... families getting into debt in order to save the life of a loved one is just peachy.
You have got a bloody clue.

Are you out of the U.K. OP? ….because here in the U.K. it definitely is deemed a luxury by many many people, to be able to afford private healthcare …….the majority just have to wait for nhs free treatment

Yup, I'm in the UK, born and bred.
I think you're confusing those who CAN afford to pay with those who CAN'T afford it - but have no choice except to find a way. Where the 'choices' are between debt or death!
To say that's a 'luxury' is incredibly insulting!

Yeah.
Maybe @Didimum's kid just had idk an itchy ear or something. Not really important. Luxury to get seen faster but hey nobody's going to die.

Other people have more pressing needs.

Or maybe @Didimum thinks that people are failing to 'acknowledge their privilege' and looking down on those who don't have PHI.... Far from it!

Almost every poster on this thread is unanimous in saying that it shouldn't be this way.

It's also like saying well, a healthy diet definitely isn't essential, it's a luxury, because a lot of people are too poor to buy fresh fruit and vegetables.

People not being able to afford something doesn't automatically make it a luxury. It just means standards are BAD

100% this! In my experience, NHS standards are worse than bad... they're catastrophic!
I had to go private to obtain something that even vaguely resembled healthcare.
To say that's a 'luxury' is actually really offensive.

All of our family (adult kids) get it through work.

I'm dreading is having to pay for DH and I in retirement but I am very definite that it is a priority for us.