INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Adam on June 17, 2014, 02:39:49 PM
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uks-healthcare-ranked-the-best-out-of-11-western-countries-with-us-coming-last-9542833.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uks-healthcare-ranked-the-best-out-of-11-western-countries-with-us-coming-last-9542833.html)
dontcha wish your healthcare was free* like ours?
dontcha wish your healthcare was the best like ours?
dontcha
:zoinks:
*already had this argument so don't even bother, Lit/semi/whoever
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The table is illogical. Every line of criteria should have rankings of 1-11 and they don't. It also stands to reason, by adding the individual rankings of each line for an individual overall column ranking total, the country with the lowest column ranking totals would be the best overall rankings at the top, and the columns with the highest totals with the worst rankings. The US overall ranking is better than Canada, France, and Norway, with France ranking at the bottom. People who don't know how to analyze and graph their data shouldn't make charts.
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One of the things I wonder about in a lot of these studies is the money do they go by what the hospital/doctor bill or by what they get from the insurance companies as there is a very big difference and it's billed out knowing the insurance company will knock the price down, I have seen as much as fifty percent knocked off comparing my bills to my insurance statements.
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One of the things I wonder about in a lot of these studies is the money do they go by what the hospital/doctor bill or by what they get from the insurance companies as there is a very big difference and it's billed out knowing the insurance company will knock the price down, I have seen as much as fifty percent knocked off comparing my bills to my insurance statements.
It would stand to reason, the dollar figures of expense per capita would be health insurance premiums plus out of pocket expense for people in the US, and tax dollars plus out of pocket for countries with nationalized care. Though you're right, who knows exactly what figures are being used for those totals, or for any of the criteria in the chart.
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The table is illogical. Every line of criteria should have rankings of 1-11 and they don't. It also stands to reason, by adding the individual rankings of each line for an individual overall column ranking total, the country with the lowest column ranking totals would be the best overall rankings at the top, and the columns with the highest totals with the worst rankings. The US overall ranking is better than Canada, France, and Norway, with France ranking at the bottom. People who don't know how to analyze and graph their data shouldn't make charts.
like this?
(http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article9542817.ece/alternates/w1024/Davis_Mirror_2014_ES1_for_web.jpg)
(What am I not seeing?)
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(What am I not seeing?)
Are you seeing every row of criteria has a ranking of 1-11, because I don't. Also try adding up the rankings for a total, or dividing the total by the eleven criteria for an average. It's illogical.
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One of the things I wonder about in a lot of these studies is the money do they go by what the hospital/doctor bill or by what they get from the insurance companies as there is a very big difference and it's billed out knowing the insurance company will knock the price down, I have seen as much as fifty percent knocked off comparing my bills to my insurance statements.
It would stand to reason, the dollar figures of expense per capita would be health insurance premiums plus out of pocket expense for people in the US, and tax dollars plus out of pocket for countries with nationalized care. Though you're right, who knows exactly what figures are being used for those totals, or for any of the criteria in the chart.
Also as you mentioned who knows if it's an apples to apples comparison. My insurance while not as good as it used to be before insurance companies panicked with the passage of obamacare once we reach $3000 out of pocket the insurance company pays 100% and that's for the family plan. We have almost no wait for doctors,the list of the ones covered is fairly good, the premiums are expensive but not that bad for a family of 5. Maybe we are atypical
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One of the things I wonder about in a lot of these studies is the money do they go by what the hospital/doctor bill or by what they get from the insurance companies as there is a very big difference and it's billed out knowing the insurance company will knock the price down, I have seen as much as fifty percent knocked off comparing my bills to my insurance statements.
It would stand to reason, the dollar figures of expense per capita would be health insurance premiums plus out of pocket expense for people in the US, and tax dollars plus out of pocket for countries with nationalized care. Though you're right, who knows exactly what figures are being used for those totals, or for any of the criteria in the chart.
Also as you mentioned who knows if it's an apples to apples comparison. My insurance while not as good as it used to be before insurance companies panicked with the passage of obamacare once we reach $3000 out of pocket the insurance company pays 100% and that's for the family plan. We have almost no wait for doctors,the list of the ones covered is fairly good, the premiums are expensive but not that bad for a family of 5. Maybe we are atypical
Yes, not sure how the US ranked lower than the UK for timeliness of care; have heard horrible things about waits in countries with nationalized care. Speaking of atypical, everyone can breathe an embarrassed sigh that Cuba often ranks better than the US in health care studies. Doncha wish you live in Cuba? :laugh:
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(What am I not seeing?)
Are you seeing every row of criteria has a ranking of 1-11, because I don't. Also try adding up the rankings for a total, or dividing the total by the eleven criteria for an average. It's illogical.
Also, the chart is categorized to give the impression that the row titled, quality care, is an average based on the four criteria listed beneath it; and the row titled, access, based on the two criteria beneath it. The ratings for those lines, if they're to be based on the rankings which compose them, make almost no sense at all.
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One of the things I wonder about in a lot of these studies is the money do they go by what the hospital/doctor bill or by what they get from the insurance companies as there is a very big difference and it's billed out knowing the insurance company will knock the price down, I have seen as much as fifty percent knocked off comparing my bills to my insurance statements.
It would stand to reason, the dollar figures of expense per capita would be health insurance premiums plus out of pocket expense for people in the US, and tax dollars plus out of pocket for countries with nationalized care. Though you're right, who knows exactly what figures are being used for those totals, or for any of the criteria in the chart.
Also as you mentioned who knows if it's an apples to apples comparison. My insurance while not as good as it used to be before insurance companies panicked with the passage of obamacare once we reach $3000 out of pocket the insurance company pays 100% and that's for the family plan. We have almost no wait for doctors,the list of the ones covered is fairly good, the premiums are expensive but not that bad for a family of 5. Maybe we are atypical
Yes, not sure how the US ranked lower than the UK for timeliness of care; have heard horrible things about waits in countries with nationalized care. Speaking of atypical, everyone can breathe an embarrassed sigh that Cuba often ranks better than the US in health care studies. Doncha wish you live in Cuba? :laugh:
:laugh:
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The title of this graph should be, Here's some nonsensical crap someone pulled out of their butt because they really want to say the UK is the best and the US is the worst. Please don't do the math. Exhibit ES-1
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Several years ago, a UK guy I spoke to in a chatroom mentioned that he needed his gall bladder out
but his expected wait was 18 weeks. Was that a fluke, or is it usual for people in excruciating stomach
pain to have to wait that long for surgery in the NHS? I hope that is not the norm. :GA:
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Several years ago, a UK guy I spoke to in a chatroom mentioned that he needed his gall bladder out
but his expected wait was 18 weeks. Was that a fluke, or is it usual for people in excruciating stomach
pain to have to wait that long for surgery in the NHS? I hope that is not the norm. :GA:
My wife needed hers out and it was gone in less than a week
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Several years ago, a UK guy I spoke to in a chatroom mentioned that he needed his gall bladder out
but his expected wait was 18 weeks. Was that a fluke, or is it usual for people in excruciating stomach
pain to have to wait that long for surgery in the NHS? I hope that is not the norm. :GA:
My wife needed hers out and it was gone in less than a week
Here it will depend on how urgently it needs to be gone.
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The US system does have many flaws and problems that really need to be addressed and if they could come up with a reasonable system to nationalize heath care it would be great but one of the big things I fear it will become in an over bloated bureaucracy like the government seems to turn anything they touch into. Also people outside the US don't really seem to understand the system in place now, nobody is denied care when they go to the emergency room, the very poor are generally on medicaid, my foster son when he was still living with us had better coverage than we did. Where things get fucked up is when your poor but unable to qualify for assistance or opt not to have coverage. A better system I feel would be a basic one that was nationalized then if you felt the need to have more coverage you could buy supplemental insurance. In Canada workman's comp and disability are included in the governments offering which I would gladly welcome here, I waive my own workman's comp because I am self employed and have heath insurance that covers my medical if I get hurt but if I had an employee on the books it I would have to pay roughly $30 for every $100 he gets paid.
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
My country is heading towards that too.
Laws just past, giving insurance companies the choice at what hospital you get care, what psychologist you can see, etc.
All part of a downsizing health costs plan. Looks like almost every day the paper opens with another health care organisation sacking a big part of their employees.
Health-care will be better because of it, it is said. :dunno:
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
Have never known that to be true.
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Several years ago, a UK guy I spoke to in a chatroom mentioned that he needed his gall bladder out
but his expected wait was 18 weeks. Was that a fluke, or is it usual for people in excruciating stomach
pain to have to wait that long for surgery in the NHS? I hope that is not the norm. :GA:
My wife needed hers out and it was gone in less than a week
That's because she had it done in America, fuck yeah! :hyke:
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
That is largely the case here, at least in some aspects.
At my job (and I assume generally in my field), we get all happy when we find out that the people who will be reading our requests for authorizations for more visits have clinical experience (and will therefore understand why we're saying yes, yes this person does need more than 12 visits with me per year). This actually come up at team meetings "Well, the people reading your requests have clinical experience." "Yay!!!"
Which is to say, we generally don't assume insurance coverage is determined by experts rather than bureaucrats unless we're explicitly told otherwise.
Though come to think of it idiot bureaucrats determining policies on things they know nothing about is what's wrong with a lot more than just healthcare in the US.
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And yet, despite this the current Con-Dem government wants to get rid of the NHS and replace it with a privatized system.
Well done. :clap:
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
That is largely the case here, at least in some aspects.
At my job (and I assume generally in my field), we get all happy when we find out that the people who will be reading our requests for authorizations for more visits have clinical experience (and will therefore understand why we're saying yes, yes this person does need more than 12 visits with me per year). This actually come up at team meetings "Well, the people reading your requests have clinical experience." "Yay!!!"
Which is to say, we generally don't assume insurance coverage is determined by experts rather than bureaucrats unless we're explicitly told otherwise.
Though come to think of it idiot bureaucrats determining policies on things they know nothing about is what's wrong with a lot more than just healthcare in the US.
Ah. Wasn't considering psychiatric care. Why would someone who doesn't fall into the realm of having disability instead of health insurance need psychiatric care more than once per month? Just curious.
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
That is largely the case here, at least in some aspects.
At my job (and I assume generally in my field), we get all happy when we find out that the people who will be reading our requests for authorizations for more visits have clinical experience (and will therefore understand why we're saying yes, yes this person does need more than 12 visits with me per year). This actually come up at team meetings "Well, the people reading your requests have clinical experience." "Yay!!!"
Which is to say, we generally don't assume insurance coverage is determined by experts rather than bureaucrats unless we're explicitly told otherwise.
Though come to think of it idiot bureaucrats determining policies on things they know nothing about is what's wrong with a lot more than just healthcare in the US.
Ah. Wasn't considering psychiatric care. Why would someone who doesn't fall into the realm of having disability instead of health insurance need psychiatric care more than once per month? Just curious.
Because it's not only people who are so mentally ill that they actually can't hold down a job that do better with therapy every week or every other week? Talk therapy generally isn't going to be very effective at 50 minutes once per month.
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Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
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It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
Have never known that to be true.
It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
A state-sponsored healthcare such as Sweden's is plagued by bureaucratic issues instead, if that is of any consolation.
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And yet, despite this the current Con-Dem government wants to get rid of the NHS and replace it with a privatized system.
Well done. :clap:
It's surprising, I have to admit. The NHS is far from perfect but I find it hard to believe that it doesn't beat a privatised alternative.
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It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
Once you're in the system and past the bureaucracy and queues that are the norm in some parts of the country, you tend to get the frequency of appointment needed, as decided by the medical professionals on a case by case basis. There are no country-wide norms, AFAIK, but I assume that there are budgets to manage that will affect the decisions.
If you have an ASD dx, you're entitled to all kinds of help. I know Lit wouldn't agree with me, but the system actually takes reasonable care of these individuals. The problem is rather to get that dx in the first place, especially if you are an adult, partly because of the bureaucracy involved but mostly because many of the professionals still don't know enough about ASDs to begin with.
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
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It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
Once you're in the system and past the bureaucracy and queues that are the norm in some parts of the country, you tend to get the frequency of appointment needed, as decided by the medical professionals on a case by case basis. There are no country-wide norms, AFAIK, but I assume that there are budgets to manage that will affect the decisions.
If you have an ASD dx, you're entitled to all kinds of help. I know Lit wouldn't agree with me, but the system actually takes reasonable care of these individuals. The problem is rather to get that dx in the first place, especially if you are an adult, partly because of the bureaucracy involved but mostly because many of the professionals still don't know enough about ASDs to begin with.
Have read things here before that gave the impression people in nationalized systems aren't choosing their own mental health care professionals. Is that correct? And medical doctors, do people have a choice in that?
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As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
Have never known that to be true.
It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
A state-sponsored healthcare such as Sweden's is plagued by bureaucratic issues instead, if that is of any consolation.
Box checkers and form fillers are the disease that infects the system and the only cure is :litigious: :flamer:
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Where is Adam? :GA:
It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
Once you're in the system and past the bureaucracy and queues that are the norm in some parts of the country, you tend to get the frequency of appointment needed, as decided by the medical professionals on a case by case basis. There are no country-wide norms, AFAIK, but I assume that there are budgets to manage that will affect the decisions.
If you have an ASD dx, you're entitled to all kinds of help. I know Lit wouldn't agree with me, but the system actually takes reasonable care of these individuals. The problem is rather to get that dx in the first place, especially if you are an adult, partly because of the bureaucracy involved but mostly because many of the professionals still don't know enough about ASDs to begin with.
Lit lives on government money.
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YEAH BUT THE AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE ACT WILL FIX EVERYTH- Oh wait its not single payer, and is basically an open door for CERTAIN insurance companies. PPPPHHHHHHBTTBTBTBTBTBTBTB this shit is horseshit.
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
Wishing Bodaccea were here; she said something not long ago about saving money so her child could have surgery to correct his vision. That seemed like an odd thing to say.
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
It is true in quite a few situations where a more expensive treatment also happens to be the better one. Yes, they only decide what they will pay for but in practical terms, what's the difference?
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
It is true in quite a few situations where a more expensive treatment also happens to be the better one. Yes, they only decide what they will pay for but in practical terms, what's the difference?
Not sure what you're asking. You said it's a flaw in the US system, but in practical terms am seeing there's not much difference with nationalized care where the government decides what treatment they will pay for.
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It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
Once you're in the system and past the bureaucracy and queues that are the norm in some parts of the country, you tend to get the frequency of appointment needed, as decided by the medical professionals on a case by case basis. There are no country-wide norms, AFAIK, but I assume that there are budgets to manage that will affect the decisions.
If you have an ASD dx, you're entitled to all kinds of help. I know Lit wouldn't agree with me, but the system actually takes reasonable care of these individuals. The problem is rather to get that dx in the first place, especially if you are an adult, partly because of the bureaucracy involved but mostly because many of the professionals still don't know enough about ASDs to begin with.
Have read things here before that gave the impression people in nationalized systems aren't choosing their own mental health care professionals. Is that correct? And medical doctors, do people have a choice in that?
In both cases, people have a choice.
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In both cases, people have a choice.
Thanks. :)
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
It is true in quite a few situations where a more expensive treatment also happens to be the better one. Yes, they only decide what they will pay for but in practical terms, what's the difference?
Not sure what you're asking. You said it's a flaw in the US system, but in practical terms am seeing there's not much difference with nationalized care where the government decides what treatment they will pay for.
The government does not decide what treatment we get here.
My point was about the insurance company deciding what they'll pay for. Yes, you can opt for a more expensive treatment but where do you get the money from? We're not necessarily talking about the difference in cost either; I'm told that it's not uncommon for them to simply refuse to cover any part of the cost if they don't approve of the treatment.
From a business point of view it makes a lot of sense as they are a profit-making company.
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My point was about the insurance company deciding what they'll pay for. Yes, you can opt for a more expensive treatment but where do you get the money from?
Guessing the same place people with nationalized care get money for treatments the government wont pay for.
We're not necessarily talking about the difference in cost either; I'm told that it's not uncommon for them to simply refuse to cover any part of the cost if they don't approve of the treatment.
Would probably have to have a good example to understand what you're saying. Elle brought up a good point about common insurance limitations for mental health visits, and my own policy also has limitations for chiropractic visits. Though have never heard of anyone's insurance outright denying to pay anything for treatment advised by a physician.
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Sorry, I don't have an example immediately available. A quick Google search gave lots of hints, though. For example, why would the following site exist if what I said was false?
http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability (http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability)
My point was about the insurance company deciding what they'll pay for. Yes, you can opt for a more expensive treatment but where do you get the money from?
Guessing the same place people with nationalized care get money for treatments the government wont pay for.
Most likely not, considering that we're talking about different countries. :tard:
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Though have never heard of anyone's insurance outright denying to pay anything for treatment advised by a physician.
Was just thinking. Maybe you had read something about some insurance companies who wouldn't pay for pre-existing conditions. Always thought that was a ploy to get people to take their insurance option immediately upon getting a new job. When joining the place I work, pre-existing was fine as long as I signed up right away, but not if I waited and took the insurance later. Though pre-existing condition clauses aren't allowed anymore. That's one thing people in other countries don't seem to understand about health insurance. It was easy to look at the statistics of the percentage of uninsured and say, oh my goodness, but what people don't understand is that a large majority of the uninsured were people who could in fact afford health insurance, but they opted not to have it. The reason many people opted not to pay is because they're generally healthy and only need to see a doctor once or twice a year for physicals and regular bloodwork, which is cheaper than annual premiums. Then they'd want to change their minds and get insurance once they got sick or in an accident. Health insurance used to be a lifestyle choice in the US. It isn't anymore.
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Most likely not, considering that we're talking about different countries. :tard:
Out of pocket expense is out of pocket for the patient no matter where they live.
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http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability (http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability)[/url]
That's a rant about a few different things, insurance claims, long-term disability claims (which have nothing to do with insurance in the US), the uninsured, all different issues being blamed on the insurance company. Not saying it's wrong, but maybe not specific enough to be fitting to the discussion so will let it go.
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Most likely not, considering that we're talking about different countries. :tard:
Out of pocket expense is out of pocket for the patient no matter where they live.
Only, the "government" does not refuse treatment here. It's not how it works at all. There are cases where experimental treatments have been denied, sure, but it would seem that you're equating between insurance companies and governments to compare the different healthcare systems and that just doesn't work.
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Though have never heard of anyone's insurance outright denying to pay anything for treatment advised by a physician.
Was just thinking. Maybe you had read something about some insurance companies who wouldn't pay for pre-existing conditions. Always thought that was a ploy to get people to take their insurance option immediately upon getting a new job. When joining the place I work, pre-existing was fine as long as I signed up right away, but not if I waited and took the insurance later. Though pre-existing condition clauses aren't allowed anymore. That's one thing people in other countries don't seem to understand about health insurance. It was easy to look at the statistics of the percentage of uninsured and say, oh my goodness, but what people don't understand is that a large majority of the uninsured were people who could in fact afford health insurance, but they opted not to have it. The reason many people opted not to pay is because they're generally healthy and only need to see a doctor once or twice a year for physicals and regular bloodwork, which is cheaper than annual premiums. Then they'd want to change their minds and get insurance once they got sick or in an accident. Health insurance used to be a lifestyle choice in the US. It isn't anymore.
I've read about those in the past, sure, but it's not what I meant.
I'll have to talk to my buddy at Eli Lilly's again. He's going to visit in a few weeks' time so maybe I'll pick up the thread then.
He's also in a unique position to compare the two systems, btw, as he's lived in both countries.
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Pharmsuticals are their own entity, as privatized and profit oriented as health insurance companies, even within the confines of government health plans pharma is separate. That deserves its own discussion.
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http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability (http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability)[/url]
That's a rant about a few different things, insurance claims, long-term disability claims (which have nothing to do with insurance in the US), the uninsured, all different issues being blamed on the insurance company. Not saying it's wrong, but maybe not specific enough to be fitting to the discussion so will let it go.
So how about this story (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-watch-20130922-story.html#page=1)?
And this one (http://) gives a few hints, but the patient seems to blame Obamacare (http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/obama-affordable-health-care-act-dooms-die-patient-article-1.1506639).
Maybe I'll dig up more later. These are not very conclusive.
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Neither of those links is working for me.
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http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability (http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability)[/url]
That's a rant about a few different things, insurance claims, long-term disability claims (which have nothing to do with insurance in the US), the uninsured, all different issues being blamed on the insurance company. Not saying it's wrong, but maybe not specific enough to be fitting to the discussion so will let it go.
So how about this story (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-watch-20130922-story.html#page=1)?
And this one (http://) gives a few hints, but the patient seems to blame Obamacare (http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/obama-affordable-health-care-act-dooms-die-patient-article-1.1506639).
Maybe I'll dig up more later. These are not very conclusive.
Not really trying to say the US health insurance system isn't in any way ever problematic, but thinking outright claim denial isn't really frequent or common because you say it is. Insurance companies are what they are and there's been some improvement with the current administration, but US the government simply isn't equipped to take over that industry, and that's not what they should be claiming or attempting to do. It would take decades to man and organize something like that; maybe it's coming eventually, but the public can't expect it to happen in a snap because some man with a microphone says he can do it. People are mad about Obamacare because he made some really big promises that weren't delivered. Personally can't wait until his term is over; tired of hearing people complain about him. Also not denying the main issues with health care in the US is largely a financial one. The real problem with health insurance in the US was obvious, the lower middle class. Those people didn't meet the income requirements for government programs and genuinely either couldn't afford insurance or worked in low-paying jobs that either offered no insurance, or offered crappy policies that didn't cover much expense above the premiums paid in. The government fixed that issue for children during the Clinton administration, by opening the umbrella of government health care by offering the lower middle class health coverage for children at a very low cost. Requiring everyone to have health insurance in the US will certainly help with the issue of the general cost of health care because the medical industry is more likely to be paid for their services now, but the financial problem of the general public hasn't been addressed. Obama promised the lower middle class an affordable government health plan and he failed. Can't see why it couldn't be done under the same principals of child health.
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Most likely not, considering that we're talking about different countries. :tard:
Out of pocket expense is out of pocket for the patient no matter where they live.
Only, the "government" does not refuse treatment here. It's not how it works at all. There are cases where experimental treatments have been denied, sure, but it would seem that you're equating between insurance companies and governments to compare the different healthcare systems and that just doesn't work.
Missed this post. Then I don't understand why someone in the UK would be saving money for laser eye surgery. That's not experimental.
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Neither of those links is working for me.
Got the first link to work. That's really more of a testimonial to the financial issues. It makes no sense that a pharmaceutical would cost 200,000 per bottle, or that someone with that level of illness wouldn't qualify for government disability health coverage. Even if that woman had no insurance, didn't have 150,000 to pay out of pocket, didn't have the credit to charge 90,000, she wouldn't have been left to die without treatment for her cancer. That's why things still work in the US. It's illegal to deny health care to someone who needs it so the medical industry just charges more to the people who can pay to make up for the people who can't or simply don't. The new insurance laws will fix some of that, though probably not the pharmaceutical aspect because that's a whole different monster.
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it would seem that you're equating between insurance companies and governments to compare the different healthcare systems and that just doesn't work.
Not really equating as much as comparing. Of course the systems are different but the end result is sort of similar in my mind. The people who can afford to pay for their health care are charged more than what it really should cost them, in order to compensate for the people who can't pay. That seems fair and even comparable to a tax based system where those who can afford to pay are supporting those who can't. The only thing that's been truly unfair about how the system works in the US, is that there's people who actually can afford to pay for their health care but they don't because their financial priorities are out of whack and they live in debt above their own means. Times are changing it would seem. Personally am wondering how quickly the general cost of care will be impacted by the new insurance requirement laws.
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Neither of those links is working for me.
Got the first link to work. That's really more of a testimonial to the financial issues. It makes no sense that a pharmaceutical would cost 200,000 per bottle, or that someone with that level of illness wouldn't qualify for government disability health coverage. Even if that woman had no insurance, didn't have 150,000 to pay out of pocket, didn't have the credit to charge 90,000, she wouldn't have been left to die without treatment for her cancer. That's why things still work in the US. It's illegal to deny health care to someone who needs it so the medical industry just charges more to the people who can pay to make up for the people who can't or simply don't. The new insurance laws will fix some of that, though probably not the pharmaceutical aspect because that's a whole different monster.
Don't really want to discuss pharmaceuticals as part of this discussion anymore. Could also probably find you links for testimonials of people on Medicaid who are paying for their own uncovered prescriptions which they can't really afford and that's crap. The government should remove the thorn from their own eye and start setting limitations on big pharma corporations before trying to convince the public they can do things any better than the insurance companies.
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Only, the "government" does not refuse treatment here.
This is still bugging me. No one is refused treatment here either. This reminds me of butterflies making the claim that ambulances speed away from sick and injured people in the US who don't have health insurance, because evidentially someone very intelligent and learned told her it's true. Thinking this is possibly a common misconception.
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And yet, despite this the current Con-Dem government wants to get rid of the NHS and replace it with a privatized system.
Well done. :clap:
It's surprising, I have to admit. The NHS is far from perfect but I find it hard to believe that it doesn't beat a privatised alternative.
Was thinking about this post today. The best way to leave this conversation, might be with logical hesitation. It's sensible to look at a system which not only works but also provides adequate standards, and determine that addressing the problems within a given system makes more sense than scrapping the entire system in exchange for another one. It's easy for the US to look to other places, and see small wealthy countries that can't make it work without the bureaucratic nightmare of people waiting too long for services, and that applied to the scale of 300 million people is disturbing. It's equally easy for those countries to look to the US as an example of the economic problems that come along with a large section of health care finances belonging to the public domain. You're probably right, the NHS though imperfect probably beats a privatized alternative, because that's how the system is designed to function, so it's more sensible and less disfunctional to address the problem areas than trying to start from scratch with something else. Believe the same is true for the US.
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No one is refused treatment here either.
Yes, they are. Maybe I'm not understanding you right, but in the case of more complicated treatments like cancer, certain options (like transplants or surgery) and certain medications are not available to people with crappy or no insurance. This is true even if those treatments are the only reasonable option to save the person's life. The doctor will call the insurance company, the insurance company will say they don't cover it, and the person will either be faced with a bill that would cause financial ruin or they simply will not get the treatment. While people who show up at an ER will not be turned away at the door, they may be sent home after a cursory checkup.
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That leads me back to the statement of not understanding how people with that level of illness aren't considered disabled. Can't help but see the pharmaceutical issue of cancer treatments as being a problem caused by that industry and not the insurance industry and the government is even more stingy when it comes to medications. Agree no one should be presented with financially crippling bills for hundreds of thousands of dollars for medications for one patient, not the patient and not the insurance company, and if the government were the ones presented with that bill then they might do something about the absurdity of big pharma. Pharmaceuticals are a separate problem and the government also denies coverage for medications for people on government health plans. It's my understanding that people needing transplants are generally on a waiting list; don't really understand how that works, or if people's placement on the list is determined by finances, but if you say it's true then will accept that as true. It's also bothersome that people look at it that way, financial ruin or otherwise refusing themselves treatment. Have known people with overwhelming medical bills, and they filed medical bankruptcy without having to forfeit any personal assets. From my understanding that's not uncommon practice to get medical bills off people's back, and part of the reason for the high general cost of care. Also lost a family member to cancer a couple of years ago and their medications were obtained by the doctors directly from the pharma company at no cost. Don't know how that was done, but do know it's done. People choosing to die because of money is absurd, and if physicians are allowing people to die, or if hospitals are refusing needed surgeries over finances then they should be held legally accountable for that. Don't claim to know how to correct the financial issue within US health care, but pharma is a bad place to start with an argument that the government can do a better job of it, because they don't.
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You made me look up the guidelines of how transplant waiting lists are prioritized. It would appear children are the only ones ever afforded any special consideration.
Specifics of waiting list rules, which can be seen at OPTN website, vary by organ. General principles, such as a patient's medical urgency, blood, tissue and size match with the donor, time on the waiting list and proximity to the donor, guide the distribution of organs. Under certain circumstance, special allowances are made for children. For example, children under age 11 who need kidneys are automatically assigned additional points. Factors such as a patient's income, celebrity status, and race or ethnic background play no role in determining allocation of organs.
http://www.organtransplants.org/understanding/unos/ (http://www.organtransplants.org/understanding/unos/)
http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/ (http://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/)
Have never heard of anyone being denied any necessary surgery based on payment, so that leaves the issue of pharma. People have a hard time separating pharmaceutical care from medical care, refusing to see it as the separate entity is it, but not me. The people denying people medication based on finances isn't the government, it isn't the insurance companies, and it isn't the physicians prescribing it. It's the pharmaceutical corporations that are doing it, and they're the big nasty elephant in the health care room neither the government nor the general public want to see. It's not as if insurance companies can't also be bankrupt by pharma costs, but the insurance companies refusal to pay isn't denying the medication. It's obvious who is denying medication.
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Now wondering what pharma corporations are actually charging the government for chemo meds.
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Got me off on an organ reading tangent, Pyraxis. :laugh: Globally, that's a messed up topic. It seems the general rule with transplants is, people can't afford them, and even people with excellent insurance coverage will end up with at least 100,000 in out of pocket, which doesn't include the maintenance pharmaceuticals, which prevent organ rejection, and cost about 10,000 per year for the life of the implant. Didn't read if insurance companies cover the maintenance medication. Because of the severity of illness and cost entailed, people with advanced organ failure generally do qualify for either Medicaid or Medicare, but read it's recommended people on Medicare should also seek some sort of supplemental insurance coverage because, unless over the age of 65, the government will only pay for the first three years of pharmaceutical maintenance care. Have no clue how people are financing those meds of if they're being denied to anyone. Though like other medications people can't afford, will assume they are. Big big elephant.
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Most likely not, considering that we're talking about different countries. :tard:
Out of pocket expense is out of pocket for the patient no matter where they live.
Only, the "government" does not refuse treatment here. It's not how it works at all. There are cases where experimental treatments have been denied, sure, but it would seem that you're equating between insurance companies and governments to compare the different healthcare systems and that just doesn't work.
Missed this post. Then I don't understand why someone in the UK would be saving money for laser eye surgery. That's not experimental.
I very much doubt their national health care would pay for someone's laser surgery unless it corrected an underlying disease rather than simply poor eyesight.
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Yes, that was the point being made about circumstances when there's a less expensive method of treatment available.
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http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability (http://www.creakyjoints.org/blogs/insurance-matters/truth-about-long-term-disability)[/url]
That's a rant about a few different things, insurance claims, long-term disability claims (which have nothing to do with insurance in the US), the uninsured, all different issues being blamed on the insurance company. Not saying it's wrong, but maybe not specific enough to be fitting to the discussion so will let it go.
So how about this story (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-healthcare-watch-20130922-story.html#page=1)?
And this one (http://) gives a few hints, but the patient seems to blame Obamacare (http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/obama-affordable-health-care-act-dooms-die-patient-article-1.1506639).
Maybe I'll dig up more later. These are not very conclusive.
Not really trying to say the US health insurance system isn't in any way ever problematic, but thinking outright claim denial isn't really frequent or common because you say it is. Insurance companies are what they are and there's been some improvement with the current administration, but US the government simply isn't equipped to take over that industry, and that's not what they should be claiming or attempting to do. It would take decades to man and organize something like that; maybe it's coming eventually, but the public can't expect it to happen in a snap because some man with a microphone says he can do it. People are mad about Obamacare because he made some really big promises that weren't delivered. Personally can't wait until his term is over; tired of hearing people complain about him. Also not denying the main issues with health care in the US is largely a financial one. The real problem with health insurance in the US was obvious, the lower middle class. Those people didn't meet the income requirements for government programs and genuinely either couldn't afford insurance or worked in low-paying jobs that either offered no insurance, or offered crappy policies that didn't cover much expense above the premiums paid in. The government fixed that issue for children during the Clinton administration, by opening the umbrella of government health care by offering the lower middle class health coverage for children at a very low cost. Requiring everyone to have health insurance in the US will certainly help with the issue of the general cost of health care because the medical industry is more likely to be paid for their services now, but the financial problem of the general public hasn't been addressed. Obama promised the lower middle class an affordable government health plan and he failed. Can't see why it couldn't be done under the same principals of child health.
The US is the only reasonably wealthy nation on the planet without a universal healthcare system. Around 16% of its population does not currently have a healthcare insurance and, according to statistics published in American Journal of Medicine, about two thirds of all bankruptcy filings in the United States in 2007 were due to illness or medical bills.
Yet, the US spends more on healthcare than any industrialised nation on the planet.
Why wouldn't it be possible for the US to have universal healthcare coverage when it's possible for just about everyone else?
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Only, the "government" does not refuse treatment here.
This is still bugging me. No one is refused treatment here either. This reminds me of butterflies making the claim that ambulances speed away from sick and injured people in the US who don't have health insurance, because evidentially someone very intelligent and learned told her it's true. Thinking this is possibly a common misconception.
There's a world of difference between being refused *basic* treatment and anything more advanced. The people currently without an insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than the ones with, according to recent statistics in a Harvard study. I'd say that while they aren't thrown out, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with an insurance.
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Now wondering what pharma corporations are actually charging the government for chemo meds.
Did you know that they are frequently charging more for the same meds in the US than they are in other countries?
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It will be next year before statistics for coverage are reflected in relation to the new mandates requiring everyone to have insurance, which were set into place this year, though already made the point of the majority of uninsured not necessarily qualifying as unable to be insured, or not able to afford insurance. Not saying it isn't possible, just not immediately possible because the system isn't in any way equipped to do it. What is immediately possible, is to address the areas which are the greatest financial concern; that's the lower middle class, and pharma cost. The government also needs to fix their own problems first, and address the problems with people who are already have government health care. Personally think the government did the right thing with the insurance mandates, and it will absolutely make a difference in the cost of care. Also would have no problem with the money personally paid in premiums to go toward taxes instead, if the government were to show it's equipped to do the job. Right now, the national budget pays more for war than social security, welfare, or education, and as long as there's elderly on Medicare with uncovered pharmaceutical care, then they're not good enough for me. Maybe when the war is over it will be possible for the US to actually care about healthcare.
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Now wondering what pharma corporations are actually charging the government for chemo meds.
Did you know that they are frequently charging more for the same meds in the US than they are in other countries?
Yes, the US and Canada have a sweet little exchange going. People strapped for cash in the US get mail order meds from Canadian distributors, and people in Canada with the big bucks come here to get surgery without having to wait. Hmph.
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they're not good enough for me.
btw. Try not to find too much pride in that statement. No one else's government is enough for me either; they're all messed up and none of them prove they can do it right. Would personally rather deal with a financial crisis than have myself or a loved one sit for months in pain, or becoming addicted to whatever relieves that pain, waiting for surgery. The UK has a private sector too, for people who can afford to get what they need when they need it, correct? Everywhere has crap. Sometimes it's just different crap. Thinking about it too much makes me tired.
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Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
Whether or not they are on disability benefits, as odeon said, it's determined by the health professionals how often they need to be seen. Weekly or every other week is pretty standard for talk therapy.
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We don't get refused *treatment* very often in the US, but we can get refused reimbursement from insurance companies.
That said, health professionals may need to turn away patients who can't pay. We have to do it at my company, sometimes, which sucks (and is a new thing we are doing to stay afloat). Also, some doctors will refuse to (or are unable to) work with people with certain kinds of insurance. In neither case is this an issue of emergency medicine, though.
The ACA is bringing insurance much more into public awareness. A couple of positives it may actually be realistic to hope for from it are that, over time, the US starts to catch up with other wealthy nations in its attitude towards health insurance as more of a right than a luxury or benefit (which would make us much more motivated to try and fix how fucked the whole thing is). Another (which sort of follows from the first) is that it may add incentive to push medicaid expansion, which it already has been (the ACA is kinda written to work properly only if there is a medicaid option).
Again, living in a state where the ACA was basically piloted, I'm already somewhat indoctrinated into the idea that health insurance is something that should be accessible.
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Have known people with overwhelming medical bills, and they filed medical bankruptcy without having to forfeit any personal assets. From my understanding that's not uncommon practice to get medical bills off people's back, and part of the reason for the high general cost of care. Also lost a family member to cancer a couple of years ago and their medications were obtained by the doctors directly from the pharma company at no cost.
Interesting... I didn't know either of these things were possible.
To get into the disability system, as far as I know, you have to have a doctor certify that you are permanently and totally disabled. I think the key word there is permamently - with cancer treatments you can have cases where the person is unable to work for a year or so, or whatever the length of the treatment, and then they go into remission and become recovered enough to work again.
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Depends on who you ask. The WHO league table looks a little different to what Adam is trying to say. Looks like he is getting skilled in politics, spouting blatant bullshit to support a selective agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index)
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/ (http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/)
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The title of this graph should be, Here's some nonsensical crap someone pulled out of their butt because they really want to say the UK is the best and the US is the worst. Please don't do the math. Exhibit ES-1
I almost can't be bothered. The shit for brains OP is incapable of responding to the completely justified refutation of his nonsense. He does this time and time again. He is either stupid, a troll or I've heard he is now in politics, which explains a lot.
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:oranna:
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Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
Whether or not they are on disability benefits, as odeon said, it's determined by the health professionals how often they need to be seen. Weekly or every other week is pretty standard for talk therapy.
Was asking if people who are on disability are provided by the government with more visits for psychiatric care than people with insurance limits of once per month.
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Have known people with overwhelming medical bills, and they filed medical bankruptcy without having to forfeit any personal assets. From my understanding that's not uncommon practice to get medical bills off people's back, and part of the reason for the high general cost of care. Also lost a family member to cancer a couple of years ago and their medications were obtained by the doctors directly from the pharma company at no cost.
Interesting... I didn't know either of these things were possible.
To get into the disability system, as far as I know, you have to have a doctor certify that you are permanently and totally disabled. I think the key word there is permamently - with cancer treatments you can have cases where the person is unable to work for a year or so, or whatever the length of the treatment, and then they go into remission and become recovered enough to work again.
Was responding specifically to your comments, which were specific to complex cancer treatments and organ donation. Those people generally do qualify; read kidney patients are pretty much automatic. Also ended up on the site of an institution which actually performs transplants. Of course they want to get paid, so their staffed financial advisors and social workers jump through all the hoops for their patients in order to get them as much coverage as they can.
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The title of this graph should be, Here's some nonsensical crap someone pulled out of their butt because they really want to say the UK is the best and the US is the worst. Please don't do the math. Exhibit ES-1
I almost can't be bothered. The shit for brains OP is incapable of responding to the completely justified refutation of his nonsense. He does this time and time again. He is either stupid, a troll or I've heard he is now in politics, which explains a lot.
Adam has always been provocative. It's not often am inspired to talk this much. You should thank him. :laugh:
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Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
Whether or not they are on disability benefits, as odeon said, it's determined by the health professionals how often they need to be seen. Weekly or every other week is pretty standard for talk therapy.
Was asking if people who are on disability are provided by the government with more visits for psychiatric care than people with insurance limits of once per month.
Not everyone who is on disability has the same insurance.
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Not everyone who is on disability has the same insurance.
Yes they do. Starting to wish Jessie or Duke were here so could ask them. This question was asked in curiosity within the context of comparing how the government provides to patients as apposed to health insurance companies, which the topic of psychiatric care was also introduced. People on disability have Medicare.
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Not everyone who is on disability has the same insurance.
Yes they do. Starting to wish Jessie or Duke were here so could ask them. This question was asked in curiosity within the context of comparing how the government provides to patients as apposed to health insurance companies, which the topic of psychiatric care was also introduced. People on disability have Medicare.
No, Jack, they don't all have the same insurance. Medicare isn't always a stand-alone insurance, and not everyone who is on disability winds up with it- whether or not that's what's "supposed" to happen. I know- a lot of my clients are on disability. I'm not just BS'ing.
Most who are on disability long-term (social security, not the temporary disability you get through the DTA) ultimately get what we call M&M- medicare/medicaid. At least in the state that I live, there are different forms of medicaid (what we call "masshealth"- the state's version of medicaid). So, for example, we have MBHP, Beacon, and Commonwealth Care, all of which are under the broad umbrella of masshealth (though MBHP is also known as "masshealth standard.") I can think of one of my clients off the top of my head who has Beacon, rather than M&M, despite having been on disability pretty much his whole life (I remember largely because he's had issues with his insurance a few times, and I'm not sure anyone, including him, knows why the heck he has beacon in the first place- but he does have it).
At least, that's how it's been. I've picked up on some of the changes this year- it seems like a lot of people explicitly have to get masshealth through MCOs (if not everyone)- but it's kind of convoluted and I haven't researched it extensively because I haven't had to. Dunno how that will effect clients with disability, including the ones with M&M.
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Additional comment: "Disability" is also not all one thing; even if you eliminate temporary disability, SSI and SSDI can each refer to disability. On further research, SSDI qualifies you for medicare, but SSI likely qualifies you for medicaid. As most of the clients who my company serves are poor, they'd end up with medicare/medicaid.
https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/ (https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/)
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Thanks, Elle. It's easy to gripe about what insurance covers and assume the government can/will/does/or even will do any better, but think it makes sense to understand if that's even true. Medicaid isn't disability insurance; it's state funded social welfare insurance for the poor and controlled under guidelines of the federal government, though do understand some people may have both if both, and social welfare programs can vary from state to state. Though okay fair enough, it can be different, and let's include poor people on state assisted programs. Do government/state welfare assisted programs provide more financial coverage than typical health insurance limitations of once per month? Even sometimes? Even considering someone with the best government/state coverage combined? Was reading trying to find an answer myself, though was only specifically looking at federal disability Medicare and not state funded programs. Had no clue it was so bad. Current legislation has made a lot of improvements, and though it clearly stated there are limitations on federal health care for mental care; can't seem to find it stated anywhere what those limitations are. Up until this year, mental health care for the disabled was probably the most grossly underfunded area of federal assistance, covering as low as 40% of costs and no coverage of pharmaceuticals until laws were changed in 2008, requiring annual increases beginning in 2010 until reaching 80% coverage in 2014; though inpatient care is still scarce and meds are very picky. Read that the new legislation is so important because the majority of mental health professionals wont even accept patients with Medicare. So going to stick to my guns of the government needing to fix their own healthcare problems first for the elderly, poor, and disabled. Though your input into this conversation makes me want to know if people with federal coverage, or even state coverage, are provided coverage for more services than someone else with a typical health insurance policy.
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Additional comment: "Disability" is also not all one thing; even if you eliminate temporary disability, SSI and SSDI can each refer to disability. On further research, SSDI qualifies you for medicare, but SSI likely qualifies you for medicaid. As most of the clients who my company serves are poor, they'd end up with medicare/medicaid.
https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/ (https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/)
I already know what these things are, and understand the difference between federal disability insurance and state welfare health coverage. What I don't know is if they'll pay you to see your clients once per week if that's what you say they need.
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Thanks, Elle. It's easy to gripe about what insurance covers and assume the government can/will/does/or even will do any better, but think it makes sense to understand if that's even true. Medicaid isn't disability insurance; it's state funded social welfare insurance for the poor and controlled under guidelines of the federal government, though do understand some people may have both if both, and social welfare programs can vary from state to state. Though okay fair enough, it can be different, and let's include poor people on state assisted programs. Do government/state welfare assisted programs provide more financial coverage than typical health insurance limitations of once per month? Even sometimes? Even considering someone with the best government/state coverage combined? Was reading trying to find an answer myself, though was only specifically looking at federal disability Medicare and not state funded programs. Had no clue it was so bad. Current legislation has made a lot of improvements, and though it clearly stated there are limitations on federal health care for mental care; can't seem to find it stated anywhere what those limitations are. Up until this year, mental health care for the disabled was probably the most grossly underfunded area of federal assistance, covering as low as 40% of costs and no coverage of pharmaceuticals until laws were changed in 2008, requiring annual increases beginning in 2010 until reaching 80% coverage in 2014; though inpatient care is still scarce and meds are very picky. Read that the new legislation is so important because the majority of mental health professionals wont even accept patients with Medicare. So going to stick to my guns of the government needing to fix their own healthcare problems first for the elderly, poor, and disabled. Though your input into this conversation makes me want to know if people with federal coverage, or even state coverage, are provided coverage for more services than someone else with a typical health insurance policy.
Jack, I think I'm struggling with your question because it seems either too simplistic, or too broad.
Here are some things I can say which might get at what you're trying to ask.
Different insurance companies do PAY doctors different rates for the same services. They will also pay different amounts- copays, coinsurances, or deductibles may fall to the client. Some medicaid plans are actually free, while some have cost, but cost less than buying private insurance on your own, rather than having it provided by a company. I believe with medi*caid,* the lower your income, the more likely it is you'll have lower- or no- copays, in general, but I get the impression that isn't consistent and it can vary based on type of service, or type of prescription. Medicare has several potential "parts," and, without actually doing research, I'll say anecdotally I get the impression it doesn't fully cover things it really ought to, and having medicaid supplement it can help pick up some slack.
Summary of above paragraph: It's complicated.
Different insurance companies require different things of the exact same providers of the exact same services. Sometimes doctors don't "accept" masshealth clients not because masshealth is a lousy payor, but because private insurance companies don't have the same kinds of burdens in terms of administrative hoop-jumping to be licensed as a provider. (I could bitch about this one for hours but that's the quick version).
re: the issue of how many visits clients will "get" with me: It's largely at my discretion, regardless of insurance. And regardless of disability.
Further explanation of this: M&M allows infinite visits, and they will periodically audit the company to make sure they're getting what they're paying for (rather than ask us to prove to them that we need more units). The various masshealth payors have their own systems of having us ask them for units (different web sites, which they periodically tweak)- they all start off with 12 units automatically auth'ed, and we ask for more as we need them, which is not a big deal and is a part of the job (albeit one of the many unpaid parts, of course). Typically that is us providing relevant clinical information to make the case for how often we want to see certain clients, and why. This will be granted based on level of symptomatology, not on disability status. Private insurance companies usually seem more lax; those clients usually don't meet "medical necessity" to be seen weekly (that's clients who are more high-risk/high-need, typically), but, again, we can plead the case (fill out paper forms, usually). And even some private insurances seem to automatically authorize what effectively end up being infinite visits. They usually will start with 12 or 24 units before needing another auth, but the 12 units thing isn't an absolute. The insurance company will just need to have a reason to give more units after that.
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Additional comment: "Disability" is also not all one thing; even if you eliminate temporary disability, SSI and SSDI can each refer to disability. On further research, SSDI qualifies you for medicare, but SSI likely qualifies you for medicaid. As most of the clients who my company serves are poor, they'd end up with medicare/medicaid.
https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/ (https://www.disability.gov/what-is-the-difference-between-social-security-disability-insurance-and-supplemental-security-income/)
I already know what these things are, and understand the difference between federal disability insurance and state welfare health coverage. What I don't know is if they'll pay you to see your clients once per week if that's what you say they need.
Why the hell didn't you ask THAT in the first place??? :P
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One more comment:
There's not a 1:1 correlation between which of my clients has the highest level of need, and which are on disability. Which is an assumption I think you may be making, Jack, and which is a part of what has been confusing me, because I don't make that assumption.
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Why the hell didn't you ask THAT in the first place??? :P
:laugh: Really thought that's what I was asking. So okay, then it's about the same, complicated, with lots of hoop jumping and justifications, whether it be for the government/state or insurance companies, though patients generally get the services advised regardless. Is that what you said? Thanks, Elle.
One more comment:
There's not a 1:1 correlation between which of my clients has the highest level of need, and which are on disability. Which is an assumption I think you may be making, Jack, and which is a part of what has been confusing me, because I don't make that assumption.
Not really. My focus on disability is because disability insurance is a federal program, and nationalized care would be a federal program. It's easy to see state governments already do a better job than federal programs, so tend to prefer to look at what the federal government actually does when discussing what the federal government could potentially do.
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My focus on disability is because disability insurance is a federal program, and nationalized care would be a federal program. It's easy to see state governments already do a better job than federal programs, so tend to prefer to look at what the federal government actually does when discussing what the federal government could potentially do.
Ergh!!! :P Wish you'd started off asking about medicare, explicitly, rather than about disability.
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:laugh: Asked about people who have disability benefits; that's Medicare. Appreciate the conversation.
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:laugh: Asked about people who have disability benefits; that's Medicare. Appreciate the conversation.
but... but... no... we've been over this...
:headexplode:
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but...but...yes. :laugh: Medicare if for the elderly and disabled regardless of income. Medicaid is for the poor, which can also include the elderly and disabled but aren't disability benefits. You know I'm right.
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they're not good enough for me.
btw. Try not to find too much pride in that statement. No one else's government is enough for me either; they're all messed up and none of them prove they can do it right. Would personally rather deal with a financial crisis than have myself or a loved one sit for months in pain, or becoming addicted to whatever relieves that pain, waiting for surgery. The UK has a private sector too, for people who can afford to get what they need when they need it, correct? Everywhere has crap. Sometimes it's just different crap. Thinking about it too much makes me tired.
There's private healthcare in the UK, yes. The difference is that there's working national healthcare, too.
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Depends on who you ask. The WHO league table looks a little different to what Adam is trying to say. Looks like he is getting skilled in politics, spouting blatant bullshit to support a selective agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index)
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/ (http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/)
Actually it seems to depend more on whom you quote. Attacking Adam personally does your argument no favours.
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There's private healthcare in the UK, yes. The difference is that there's working national healthcare, too.
The difference creates a system where the wealthy are prioritized; that's why Canada doesn't allow it. Privatized care undermines the principles of equality for a nationalized system. Understand the waiting times are related to the lack of specialist in practice within the NHS, with specialized care costing more so more serving the private sector, and even specialist serving the NHS supplementing their income with private practice. Also read private coverage doesn't cover general practitioners and is designed for specialized service, and isn't completely sought voluntarily, which didn't realize, with some people offered insurance through their employers, creating the argument that the system not only prioritizes the specialized care the wealthy but also large corporations. This gives the impression that people requiring anything more than general practice are better off with private health insurance, and that's why people who can afford it seek it out. Regardless of what you may say, the US also has a working national healthcare system, controlled by the government and funded by the states, which provides coverage to those who can't afford to pay for private coverage. The only problem is, it doesn't provide to all of them and the income boundaries of that system need to be widened for that reason. It's good that insurance coverage is no longer a lifestyle choice for people who can afford it or for business who can afford to offer it, because the government will now have no choice but to address the healthcare needs of the ones who can't and statistics for healthcare coverage will more accurately reflect the real problem areas. Can't see the private sector going away in the US, though wouldn't want to see it equated to the private sector of the UK. The US system has problems that are financial, while the UK system has problems with fair apportionment of specialized services. It's really just a matter of opinion as to which of those is worse. You should fix my karma for this awesome post.
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but...but...yes. :laugh: Medicare if for the elderly and disabled regardless of income. Medicaid is for the poor, which can also include the elderly and disabled but aren't disability benefits. You know I'm right.
See previous link to SSI vs. SSDI, or just click this:
http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html (http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html)
Medicare is given to people with SSDI disability, but not necessarily SSI. The term "disability" (as a source of income) gets used to refer to either.
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but...but...yes. :laugh: Medicare if for the elderly and disabled regardless of income. Medicaid is for the poor, which can also include the elderly and disabled but aren't disability benefits. You know I'm right.
See previous link to SSI vs. SSDI, or just click this:
http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html (http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html)
Medicare is given to people with SSDI disability, but not necessarily SSI. The term "disability" (as a source of income) gets used to refer to either.
Was never trying to discuss with you supplemental income or state funded social welfare insurance of the poor. Am discussing federal health insurance programs and what the federal government provides in that context to have a sense of comparrison.
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but...but...yes. :laugh: Medicare if for the elderly and disabled regardless of income. Medicaid is for the poor, which can also include the elderly and disabled but aren't disability benefits. You know I'm right.
See previous link to SSI vs. SSDI, or just click this:
http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html (http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html)
Medicare is given to people with SSDI disability, but not necessarily SSI. The term "disability" (as a source of income) gets used to refer to either.
Was never trying to discuss with you supplemental income or state funded social welfare insurance of the poor. Am discussing federal health insurance programs and what the federal government provides in that context to have a sense of comparrison.
Thinking we should let this go, Elle, before we end up irritating the crap out of each other. Thinking you keep insisting I can't comprehend the fact that these programs can work together and people with government coverage can, and often do, meet the financial requirements to also have state funded coverage, while I'm trying to look at the federal government and not the fact that the states are picking up the government's loose ends. As long as you keep doing that, will keep insisting that you refuse to acknowledge that it's the states providing the most public health coverage, what the federal government actually does they don't do very well, and what that implies to a nationalized program funded by the federal government.
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but...but...yes. :laugh: Medicare if for the elderly and disabled regardless of income. Medicaid is for the poor, which can also include the elderly and disabled but aren't disability benefits. You know I'm right.
See previous link to SSI vs. SSDI, or just click this:
http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html (http://www.disabilitysecrets.com/will-i-get-medicare-medicaid-with-disability.html)
Medicare is given to people with SSDI disability, but not necessarily SSI. The term "disability" (as a source of income) gets used to refer to either.
Was never trying to discuss with you supplemental income or state funded social welfare insurance of the poor. Am discussing federal health insurance programs and what the federal government provides in that context to have a sense of comparrison.
Thinking we should let this go, Elle, before we end up irritating the crap out of each other. Thinking you keep insisting I can't comprehend the fact that these programs can work together and people with government coverage can, and often do, meet the financial requirements to also have state funded coverage, while I'm trying to look at the federal government and not the fact that the states are picking up the government's loose ends. As long as you keep doing that, will keep insisting that you refuse to acknowledge that it's the states providing the most public health coverage, what the federal government actually does they don't do very well, and what that implies to a nationalized program funded by the federal government.
Wait, what? When did I say anything about that, one way or the other?
I think the issue is more I've been repeatedly responding to what I think you're talking about based on the way you're wording things, then you say you were really talking about something different. I think I'm getting more stuck on semantics than usual because regardless of what you meant, or meant to get at, I feel my responses have been valid based on what you've been saying, and some of that has been word choice.
For a goodly chunk of the conversation, I got the impression that you were assuming all people on "disability" (which is term that gets used interchangeably to mean SSI or SSDI in my experience; I was unclear on whether you were explicitly only referring to SSDI) have the same kinds of insurance, and that is not actually how it works in practice. It felt like you were arguing your point from purely academic knowledge, the kind that comes from "this is what is written down" or "this is how it's supposed to be," rather than experience, and I couldn't tell how much of the academic knowledge was actually fully clear or accurate in your head.
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Fair enough, can absolutely accept a statement such as I haven't been expressing myself well. Went back and looked at what you said, and realized what started my attention toward you, and realize it may be a lot of misunderstanding of meaning.
Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
Whether or not they are on disability benefits, as odeon said, it's determined by the health professionals how often they need to be seen. Weekly or every other week is pretty standard for talk therapy.
I should have read this response better. I felt this response was ignoring my question, because what odeon said, was that insurance companies decide what care people receive, not the health professionals, and you agreed with that. Though now see you may have misunderstood what he said, and that's why you didn't understand why I wanted to know if the government does anything better.
*sigh*
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Fair enough, can absolutely accept a statement such as I haven't been expressing myself well. Went back and looked at what you said, and realized what started my attention toward you, and realize it may be a lot of misunderstanding of meaning.
Not sure I understand your question. Haven't ever known anyone receiving regular psychotherapy, so this is more curiosity than anything. Are people on disability benefits afforded therapy every week?
Whether or not they are on disability benefits, as odeon said, it's determined by the health professionals how often they need to be seen. Weekly or every other week is pretty standard for talk therapy.
I should have read this response better. I felt this response was ignoring my question, because what odeon said, was that insurance companies decide what care people receive, not the health professionals, and you agreed with that. Though now see you may have misunderstood what he said, and that's why you didn't understand why I wanted to know if the government does anything better.
*sigh*
was referencing this, Jack:
It would also be interesting to know how mental health care benefits work in countries with nationalized care. What type of frequency is the norm? Are there standards for frequency of appointment that are allowed?
Once you're in the system and past the bureaucracy and queues that are the norm in some parts of the country, you tend to get the frequency of appointment needed, as decided by the medical professionals on a case by case basis. There are no country-wide norms, AFAIK, but I assume that there are budgets to manage that will affect the decisions.
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Thought it was related to this:
As far as I know, a big flaw with your system is that the care that you receive is frequently decided by the insurance company rather than a medical professional.
That is largely the case here, at least in some aspects.
At my job (and I assume generally in my field), we get all happy when we find out that the people who will be reading our requests for authorizations for more visits have clinical experience (and will therefore understand why we're saying yes, yes this person does need more than 12 visits with me per year). This actually come up at team meetings "Well, the people reading your requests have clinical experience." "Yay!!!"
Which is to say, we generally don't assume insurance coverage is determined by experts rather than bureaucrats unless we're explicitly told otherwise.
Though come to think of it idiot bureaucrats determining policies on things they know nothing about is what's wrong with a lot more than just healthcare in the US.
It's not the case here that insurance companies make those decisions. Though admitted not knowing if or how this relates to mental health. This is what prompted me to question what decisions the government might also be making for you and your patients.
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Privatized care undermines the principles of equality for a nationalized system.
No. It offers an alternative.
You should fix my karma for this awesome post.
What's there to fix? Also, I disagreed with mostly everything in it.
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Privatized care undermines the principles of equality for a nationalized system.
No. It offers an alternative.
People want an alternative to free services they've already paid for with their own tax dollars? Yes, it offers an alternative for the people who can afford not to stand in queue along with everyone else.
You should fix my karma for this awesome post.
What's there to fix? Also, I disagreed with mostly everything in it.
That doesn't make it incorrect.
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Privatized care undermines the principles of equality for a nationalized system.
No. It offers an alternative.
People want an alternative to free services they've already paid for with their own tax dollars? Yes, it offers an alternative for the people who can afford not to stand in queue along with everyone else.
Not sure why that is a bad thing. First of all, everyone is entitled to healthcare here. The quality of that healthcare is actually quite good and while there are problems with queues, yes, people actually do get help. If you don't want to wait or if you prefer a second opinion, there is a private alternative.
Many companies use private caregivers to provide company healthcare, on top of the national system. You can also buy a health insurance.
Plus, the services of some private caregivers are subsidised by the state to complement the national ones.
Why should this not preferable to the situation in the US, where around 16% have no insurance and thus have a significantly higher mortality rate, in spite of the nation spending more money per capita on healthcare? I really don't understand so help me out here.
You should fix my karma for this awesome post.
What's there to fix? Also, I disagreed with mostly everything in it.
That doesn't make it incorrect.
It doesn't make it correct either.
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:include:
Depends on who you ask. The WHO league table looks a little different to what Adam is trying to say. Looks like he is getting skilled in politics, spouting blatant bullshit to support a selective agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index)
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/ (http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/)
Actually it seems to depend more on whom you quote. Attacking Adam personally does your argument no favours.
Fair enough, it does depend on whom you quote. You are correct. As for Adam he can cope with an attack from me. I'm not trying to prove a point and I know what ad hominem does to an argument. I'm just sick of seeing him spout propaganda and wished to point this out.
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Not sure why that is a bad thing. First of all, everyone is entitled to healthcare here. The quality of that healthcare is actually quite good and while there are problems with queues, yes, people actually do get help. If you don't want to wait or if you prefer a second opinion, there is a private alternative.
Many companies use private caregivers to provide company healthcare, on top of the national system. You can also buy a health insurance.
Plus, the services of some private caregivers are subsidised by the state to complement the national ones.
Why should this not preferable to the situation in the US, where around 16% have no insurance and thus have a significantly higher mortality rate, in spite of the nation spending more money per capita on healthcare? I really don't understand so help me out here.
It's odd that people in the UK don't think it's so terrible to wait in pain for months on end as compared to having bills, and people in the US see it the opposite. It's probably perspective and what people are used to experiencing. Feeling like I'm repeating myself at this point. Everyone is entitled to care here as well; it's annoying when people say we're not. what they're not entitled to, is for someone else to pick up the bill; only certain people are entitled to that. The quality of care here is also quite good, even though a certain subset of the population is sometimes stuck with the bill. However, the US doesn't have a situation where the actual medical institutions are divided by class, which means there's not a situation where people with government/state coverage, or even no coverage, wait for months to be admitted into a hospital, while those with insurance breeze through the door. It's not better because it creates a separation of class within the actual hospitals. Have never denied there's a slice of the populace in the US which is absolutely problematic, but 16% figure is a farce and new statistics from the new legislation will show that. Before this year, there were a lot of people who were offered good coverage by their employers, could afford to pay it, and they chose not to in order to have that money as spendable income instead. Those people were needlessly taxing the health system because when an emergency arrived they didn't have any coverage and their bills went unpaid, and that's exactly the reason new laws require everyone to have insurance. The system in the UK makes it clear that people are in fact better off having health insurance and that's not a very good argument for a nationalized system. It's also odd the UK keeps cutting funding to the NHS, which is only exacerbating the current problems in the system. It's almost like they're doing it on purpose, pressuring the public to pay for their own health coverage while continuing to tax them at a rate that they shouldn't care about paying for health insurance at all.
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Jack, what services are you talking about having what kinds of waitlists in what countries? The more specific you are, the more credible your argument will seem. I'm still not totally sure what points you're trying to make, or questions you're trying to ask.
Right now, again, I can tell you from experience, it can be a pain in the ass to get proper healthcare here in the US, too- and not just due to financial reasons. But, re: finances, I think "bills" doesn't do justice to just how financially damaging medical expenses can really be- they can drive people into bankruptcy. I know people personally who have delayed or not gotten some pretty important medical care because they didn't have insurance or money to pay out-of-pocket.
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Unlike anything said about the US, my comments on UK services are actually academic. Am specifically talking about any non-emergency care requiring a hospital in the UK. UK hospital are divided by class where private hospitals provide immediate specialized care, and public ones have people waiting for months to be admitted. The income lost for a physical laborer waiting five months for a knee surgery is equitable to what the surgery would cost completely out of pocket. It's absurd. Odeon said some private specialist are subsidized by NHS, but read that's actually instances where the NHS has made someone wait beyond the legal limits. Someone who has been made to wait more than 18 weeks for hospitalization can request to be referred to a private hospital at the NHS's expense, don't know their likelihood of getting that. With recurring budget cuts, waiting beyond the legal limit is occurring much more often, so it makes sense that's true and some private specialists are being supported by the NHS. Private insurance in the UK does not cover generalized care, so it's true what he says that people with insurance are using both systems. Don't really care to relay a lifetime of personal experience but do know for a fact everything I say about the care in the US is true. Even small communities have clinics where people can get generalized care for free or nominal fees, and most people can afford generalized care out of pocket. The statistics aren't accurate because up until this year health coverage was a choice for the vast majority of the public. There are uncovered people in the US who qualify for public assisted coverage and don't even realize it. There are uncovered people who qualify for public coverage and don't apply because choose not to be in the welfare system (2014 no longer their choice). There are lower middle class people who don't qualify for public coverage and genuinely can't afford insurance and those people need addressed (repeating myself and don't know if current legislation addresses that). Workplaces who offer coverage pay half of the premium costs and there are middle class people who could afford coverage if their work actually offered it (2014 no longer their choice). There are uncovered self-employed middle class people who can't afford to seek their own insurance because they don't have an employer paying half the premiums and those people need to be addressed (not sure if the new legislation addresses that). There are uncovered middle class people offered ample insurance who don't apply for it because bad choices (2014 no longer a choice). There are middle class people with great insurance who still personally avoid the medical system outside of emergencies, because bad choices. Uninsured people in the US are not denied emergency hospital care. Uncovered people are also not denied scheduled hospital care for either physical or mental health needs, nor are they given care at any less expedience than people who have public coverage or health insurance. There's a huge difference between facing physical pain and financial pain, and bankruptcy over medical bills, doesn't mean people have to forfeit their personal assets. Personally know every single of these things is true, and just because am not poor, uninsured, or both, doesn't mean have never been. Have never said these things aren't problems; they are. Some of the actual financial issues with coverage in the US are being addressed without trying to scrap the system, and truly think that's a positive thing. But it's messed up everywhere, Elle, and the UK isn't a good model of how it's done well or even fairly. Really don't know what to say about people who wont seek medical care because they fear debt, but had to stop reading about the problems in the UK. It's easy to find financial horror stories about care in the US, but after reading about a child needing something as simple as stitches being made to wait so long the wound healed shut, negating the need for it to be stitched, as a reason for a family seeking private insurance. Had to stop reading about the UK.
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have a significantly higher mortality rate,
In looking for legitimate resources for world mortality rates, the US rankes better than the UK, though both are actually very close in annual deaths per 1000 persons, and neither has anything to be proud in their ranking placement on the list. Yes someone did a study about comparing mortality between insured vs uninsured in the us; would be curious to see a study of the mortality rates of NHS vs private health coverage in the UK. On further reading, didn't realize the waiting list is even more problematic than it seems, and people wait to be put on the waiting list for surgery, waiting sometimes more than a year. Reading people very upset for paying taxes all their lives and the first time they need surgery their system isn't servicing them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_mortality_rate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_mortality_rate)
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html)
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It's apparently quite common with the more expensive treatments, says my research scientist mate at Eli Lilly's.
That might be true in in situations where a less expensive treatment is an available option. Though it's not really the insurance company deciding what care is received, but rather what they will pay for. Though isn't that also true with nationalized care? If there's more than one treatment and the patient opts for the more expensive one, might they expect some out of pocket expense?
Wishing Bodaccea were here; she said something not long ago about saving money so her child could have surgery to correct his vision. That seemed like an odd thing to say.
I'll address this first. Children (under 16) recieve free treatment for visits to the optician. The laser surgery for the urchin is not considered appropriate until 16 years old which is when he is liable to pay. Depending on the government at that time they might say to me 'he can wear glasses to correct his vision'. Which is true. The future may also be a time where all people who wear glasses can freely choose laser surgery if apprpriate. This is not a guarantee.
I decided to put some money together so that when he is sixteen i can take him to a laser surgery clinic, slap some folding on the counter and say "two peepers to be corrected please, pronto! and i will be in the waiting room"
I daresay there will be a way to get it on the nhs when the time comes. The chance of this will increase if he is still studying and also an argument about the number of glasses he breaks. There will likely be a lot of waiting. Huge piles of forms. It has 'headache' written all over it.
The fact that i am aware that the event is coming (not true for many nhs treatments) gives me the advantage of making plans to ensure it is as pleasant as possible. The best odds of ensuring this is to have the money ready to pay privately.
I have more to say about this, and the nhs in general but will come back later as i am making a new 'yabbit' run and assault course in the garden. Important stuff. :laugh:
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Welcome back.
Thanks for responding to that. You make a good point. It does make sense that a lifetime of glasses or contacts would be a good argument for corrective surgery to be covered. Don't really know if corrective surgery is generally covered with US insurance. Vision and dental are separate policies; family has no vision needs so have never had vision coverage.
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My experiences of the nhs : good and bad
* I received excellent care when I had my son. He was born a little premature and via C section. I had an excellent midwife “Bev” who really did a great job. I was assigned to Bev as soon as I was aware of the little urchin and I saw her at least every two weeks until he was a couple of months old. She provided continuity of care. I would not have been so happy if I had to chop and change and see lots of different people.
*My GP practice (consists of 4 doctors and 2 nurses) makes a promise to see you that same day if you ring by 12 noon. They have never failed and have always seen me almost immediately if I have rang about the urchin. My Mom’s practice is very different and a wait of 2 weeks for non emergency appointments is not unheard of.
*My Dad had laser eye surgery and was amazed with the results.
*My Mum is having carpal tunnel surgery on Tuesday and has not had to wait at all. However, she did have to wait around three years for a knee replacement.
* I got fed up waiting for ADHD diagnosis for the urchin (2 years) and after lots of complaining I eventually paid a private consultant. My MP complained on my behalf and this resulted in an investigation where my complaint was upheld. Since then, the service from CAMHS (child adolescent mental health services) has been very good. This gives me the impression that complaining is perhaps futile unless you have someone important in your corner.
*My sister died aged 28 when they failed to diagnose heart valve failure. She kept getting fobbed off at her GP’s when she went feeling poorly. Told her to go home, take some paracetamol. It was only when she was rushed to A&E that the problem was discovered. It was too late.
* They killed my Dad. Well, indirectly. He had bowel cancer, which was a very non aggressive type that would not likely kill him for 10 years. He went into hospital for a routine biopsy to check progress and caught C Diff. Oh he didn’t die immediately – but he never left hospital. He spent months in there, deteriorating, but finally left with a series of strokes. It would have been an almost guaranteed compensation claim. My Dad was vehemently opposed to claiming against an already stretched nhs service. He thought the principal was wrong. He said the nhs needed money going into it and thought the growing culture of claims to be wrong and greedy. He wasn’t being naive. He was a well read man and took an interest in politics. He was not a religious man, but a man of principal and he used to say you shouldn’t waiver your principals just because you smell cash!
I mention this as negligence claims on the nhs are becoming a problem.
Compensation paid to people whose illnesses were not spotted or were detected too late soared from £56 million in 2009-10 to more than £98 million in 2010-11.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9316982/NHS-compensation-to-misdiagnosed-patients-rises-to-98-million.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9316982/NHS-compensation-to-misdiagnosed-patients-rises-to-98-million.html)
That is just the figure for misdiagnosis. You have to take into account all the bungling scalpel slip up’s and the shortage of leeches. The total amount is a whopping:
NHS facing £15.7bn for rising number of clinical negligence claims
The NHS faces a £15.7 billion bill to settle a rising number of clinical negligence claims, a report by MPs disclosed last night.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9065534/NHS-facing-15.7bn-for-rising-number-of-clinical-negligence-claims.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9065534/NHS-facing-15.7bn-for-rising-number-of-clinical-negligence-claims.html)
This is one seventh of the total health services annual budget.
I wonder if £15.7 bn would go a long way to fixing the broken nhs? It seems a crazy situation. Mostly, negligence claims are blamed on staff shortages and lack of resources. So if we spent this money rectifying the shortfall then surely there would not be such a need to claim compensation?
My reason for listing my experiences above is to illustrate just what a ‘lottery’ the nhs service provides. Facts and figures and graphs and data are useful but i think actual user experiences sometimes make understanding easier. As you will see services are so varied. You could receive excellent care in one dept, but a few miles away it could be really awful. If you require surgery – it might be next week or two years away. If you make a fuss and a big noise you might get seen quicker. You might not.
I have no reason to jump up and down and shout about how great the nhs is. It is clearly very broken, but I have seen it in worse condition.
For me, I believe in the founding principles of the nhs. Absolutely. Therefore I am glad we have one. Albeit broken. No matter how mismanaged it gets it will always be worth persuing. It is worth saving.
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I am not really sure about where i sit regarding compensation claims on the nhs. I thought i was all for it. When my own complaint was upheld it gave me a green light to persue. I got the forms but just haven't been able to complete them. It bothers me that my Dad would be dissappointed in me. I think that any kind of payout would just feel icky.
I should also point out that if a claim was made about private health care, it would be directly against that particular consultant or his/ her practice. The difference with nhs services is that the duty of care does not fall on the doctor but on whichever health trust is responsible. I wonder if this increases the chance of compensation claims? It is a faceless institution, and surely this makes a difference.
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That was a good post, bodaccea. My sympathies concerning your father.
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:include:Depends on who you ask. The WHO league table looks a little different to what Adam is trying to say. Looks like he is getting skilled in politics, spouting blatant bullshit to support a selective agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro_health_consumer_index)
http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/ (http://thepatientfactor.com/canadian-health-care-information/world-health-organizations-ranking-of-the-worlds-health-systems/)
Actually it seems to depend more on whom you quote. Attacking Adam personally does your argument no favours.
Fair enough, it does depend on whom you quote. You are correct. As for Adam he can cope with an attack from me. I'm not trying to prove a point and I know what ad hominem does to an argument. I'm just sick of seeing him spout propaganda and wished to point this out.
Either he'll cope or he'll cry himself to sleep. You brute. :zoinks:
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying - the US healthcare is hardly your responsibility - but here are a few points:
Nobody's going to be driven into bankruptcy here because of a sudden illness and expensive medical bills. It does, however, happen in your country.
I know you're not going to be thrown out from the ER in the US if you don't have insurance, but I'm pretty sure you won't get the whole range of non-emergency treatment if that is the case. The *significantly* higher mortality rates for those 16% - 15.9% at the moment, I believe - prove that.
Yes, the quality of those actually receiving healthcare in the US is quite good. I know. It should be, considering the money the US spends on it. More than anyone else on the planet, per capita, if memory serves. It's significantly more than the money spent per capita in, say, the UK.
Why you are still unable to provide universal healthcare is beyond me.
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying - the US healthcare is hardly your responsibility - but here are a few points:
Nobody's going to be driven into bankruptcy here because of a sudden illness and expensive medical bills. It does, however, happen in your country.
I know you're not going to be thrown out from the ER in the US if you don't have insurance, but I'm pretty sure you won't get the whole range of non-emergency treatment if that is the case. The *significantly* higher mortality rates for those 16% - 15.9% at the moment, I believe - prove that.
Yes, the quality of those actually receiving healthcare in the US is quite good. I know. It should be, considering the money the US spends on it. More than anyone else on the planet, per capita, if memory serves. It's significantly more than the money spent per capita in, say, the UK.
Why you are still unable to provide universal healthcare is beyond me.
Because here in Murika, we've got it into our heads that we have the right to guns, but don't have the right to universal healthcare. :bangbang:
(Don't get me wrong, I personally like the idea of being able to get an FID and own a firearm, but I have trouble justifying that as being a "right" in the same weight class as basic human rights. I think that's based way more on culture and the feels of gun nuts than it is logic, especially with how far outclassed legal civilian weapons are by anything the government would want to throw at us anyway. Whole nother debate, but, just sayin'.)
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I've also observed a fear among some people that universal health care = OMG, COMMUNISM !!!!!! :bint:
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I get the impression that US citizens don't really want a universal healthcare. Not enough of you make noise about it. Well, I don't know if that is true for certain as i only really get a feel of the place via news and TV. We don't get many reports about healthcare campaigns. Maybe it is media bias, but we often see Americans making a noise about their gun rights.
Is this an accurate picture of things?
I just thought about reactions if us Brits woke up one morning to find the nhs gone and replaced with the right to own a gun. :zoinks:
:zombiefuck: Panic
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But if you had a gun, you could just force doctors to treat you, at gunpoint! :autism:
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afterthought
:asthing: :asthing: "guns don't kill people, National Health Trusts do" :asthing: :asthing:
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But if you had a gun, you could just force doctors to treat you, at gunpoint! :autism:
...BUT if our nhs was taken away, it would also follow that the national hobby of 'moaning' about it would be gone too. How would we cope. Extra Tea would need to be shipped in!
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I feel the nhs is so ingrained into our society it will be around for many years. Tories will always water it down but not even Maggie could kill it.
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I've also observed a fear among some people that universal health care = OMG, COMMUNISM !!!!!! :bint:
i've noticed that "OMG, COMMUNISM !!! :bint: " seems to be a common reaction to any decent politics in the US. i don't get why anything even moderately left of centre is so terrifying/repulsive to so many people in the US. "socialism" seems to be a dirty word there. your "left" politicians are more right wing than ours, and we don't even HAVE socialist governments anymore
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they'll kill it eventually, the cunts.
with each tory government we get, more and more is slowly destroyed and people are too fucking stupid to do anything about it.
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But if you had a gun, you could just force doctors to treat you, at gunpoint! :autism:
...BUT if our nhs was taken away, it would also follow that the national hobby of 'moaning' about it would be gone too. How would we cope. Extra Tea would need to be shipped in!
We may still have some here in Boston Harbor. Come get it. :trollface:
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they'll kill it eventually, the cunts.
with each tory government we get, more and more is slowly destroyed and people are too fucking stupid to do anything about it.
I read somewhere (can't quote because i don't remember where) that poverty and years of inequality will eventually force people from their xbox to go vote labour. Then, when a certain standard of living is achieved people get all snobby and vote tory. I read that people are inclined to feel more tory when their pay reaches a certain level.
He he he fucking stoooopid
and it was NOT the Daily Mail where I read that. Probably The Mirror.
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But if you had a gun, you could just force doctors to treat you, at gunpoint! :autism:
The doctor earns more, and probably would have a bigger gun, and better training in how to use it.
You'd end up with a massive bill for all the stitching and stopping of internal bleeds.
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Sometimes waiting is not that bad, if you know the reason why. My mum had a non critical inguinal hernia, and needed surgery, but not right away. Her neighbour got the same, sudden and threathening, right after my mum had done the pre-op things. He got operated within a week, she would have to wait four to six weeks.
In the end, she had to wait ten weeks. But, she did get to hear the reason why. The mammogram van had been in the area of the hospital of her choice. And the number of women needing a breast operation was massive this time. Getting a woman with cancer treated before treating a woman with a non critical hernia makes a lot of sense. She could have opted for another hospital, but then she would have to start at the bottom of a list waiting four to six weeks.
I got my gall-bladder surgery late, simply because I chickened out. It was hospital proposing a way earlier date in the end, with the caveat that if there would be a person with cancer showing up, I would end up in the late scheme I had in mind. Because the surgeon operating on me was also the one doing certain types of cancer. Made sense, for me it meant I got operated sooner than I had the guts to get operated. And that was for the better.
I have seen no bill for my operation.
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I have seen no bill for my operation.
This :clap: :clap: :clap:
There are already enough stresses and things to worry about when facing a stretch in hospital. Removing the bill makes a heck of a difference.
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I get the impression that US citizens don't really want a universal healthcare. Not enough of you make noise about it. Well, I don't know if that is true for certain as i only really get a feel of the place via news and TV. We don't get many reports about healthcare campaigns. Maybe it is media bias, but we often see Americans making a noise about their gun rights.
Is this an accurate picture of things?
I just thought about reactions if us Brits woke up one morning to find the nhs gone and replaced with the right to own a gun. :zoinks:
:zombiefuck: Panic
Lots of boomstick wounds, and noplace to treat them.
Srsly it's kind of annoying how easily people get sucked in by the press bashing "obamacare." But people aren't as upset about the affordable care act. CHRIST
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying - the US healthcare is hardly your responsibility - but here are a few points:
Nobody's going to be driven into bankruptcy here because of a sudden illness and expensive medical bills. It does, however, happen in your country.
I know you're not going to be thrown out from the ER in the US if you don't have insurance, but I'm pretty sure you won't get the whole range of non-emergency treatment if that is the case. The *significantly* higher mortality rates for those 16% - 15.9% at the moment, I believe - prove that.
Yes, the quality of those actually receiving healthcare in the US is quite good. I know. It should be, considering the money the US spends on it. More than anyone else on the planet, per capita, if memory serves. It's significantly more than the money spent per capita in, say, the UK.
Why you are still unable to provide universal healthcare is beyond me.
Not really being defensive, and quite easily able to acknowledge problems in the US system. Have pointed out several times the negative aspects of problems in US health. Though it seems other people have problems doing that with their own systems. The US is bad, the UK is good, gets tiring. It's nonsense. I appreciate bodaccea being willing to say something negative; have never seen anyone here from the UK before willing to say anything negative about the NHS. The UK aren't doing it any better, just different, and yes, some people in the UK are probably are experiencing financial woes, even bankruptcy, when they can't do their jobs while waiting months for surgery. Not sure why you want to continue making the point of mortality. Thinking the mortality rates of the UK might be related to the health system, because the US has better mortality ratings than the UK and, after all, we're shooting each other over here and dying because we don't have insurance. :laugh:
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i've noticed that "OMG, COMMUNISM !!! :bint: "
It's usually a reaction of OMG SOCIALISM!! :laugh: Though the US does have some aspects of socialism in place. The school systems are a great example of that, and a good place to look when taking a logical viewpoint of how the federal government might prioritize health in the national budget. The US just needs to try to fix some real problems, not hand the whole thing over. Certainly people in the UK can look at how their own government is destroying NHS funding and see that.
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying
Jack is being logical. :M
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There's a world of difference between being refused *basic* treatment and anything more advanced. The people currently without an insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than the ones with, according to recent statistics in a Harvard study. I'd say that while they aren't thrown out, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with an insurance.
There's a world of difference between expensive treatment, and low standard treatment, and while people using the NHS don't have bills, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with insurance or paying straight out of pocket using private hospitals. Not sure why you're being so defensive about nationalized care, Odeon. Nationalized healthcare is hardly your responsibility.
http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds (http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds)
A google search of NHS mortality leads to all sorts of alarming stories of unpleasant government inquiries, unfavorable board reviews, scandals of cover ups, and what not, all recent. Probably better for people in the UK to focus on problems of the US system instead. Like the title says, UK first, US last. That works.
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There's a world of difference between being refused *basic* treatment and anything more advanced. The people currently without an insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than the ones with, according to recent statistics in a Harvard study. I'd say that while they aren't thrown out, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with an insurance.
There's a world of difference between expensive treatment, and low standard treatment, and while people using the NHS don't have bills, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with insurance or paying straight out of pocket using private hospitals. Not sure why you're being so defensive about nationalized care, Odeon. Nationalized healthcare is hardly your responsibility.
http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds (http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds)
A google search of NHS mortality leads to all sorts of alarming stories of unpleasant government inquiries, unfavorable board reviews, scandals of cover ups, and what not, all recent. Probably better for people in the UK to focus on problems of the US system instead. Like the title says, UK first, US last. That works.
I feel like that article glamorizes the US hospital system unrealistically. Most hospitals aren't anywhere near as good as the Mayo clinic, here or elsewhere.
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I feel like that article glamorizes the US hospital system unrealistically. Most hospitals aren't anywhere near as good as the Mayo clinic, here or elsewhere.
Yes, the article does highlight the Mayo Clinic because it's one of the best; though the study wasn't comparing the NHS to the mayo clinic. If that were the case, the NHS wouldn't care about the findings. Maybe should have taken the time to find a better link. Here's one from the NHS news site which discusses the findings of the study without going into the whole bit about how people are 60% more likely to die in a NHS hospital than one in the US. In fact, it doesn't mention the US at all, but simply the NHS looking at it's own problems. Go figure.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/12December/Pages/Worryingly-high-hospital-death-rates-reported.aspx (http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/12December/Pages/Worryingly-high-hospital-death-rates-reported.aspx)
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I just want to point out that the nhs is not supposed to be a second class service. It does not agree to deliver just basic healthcare. It is supposed to be a fully comprehensive and upto date health service provider.
This is from 'The NHS Constitution'
1.
The NHS provides a comprehensive service, available to all irrespective of gender, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion, belief, gender reassignment, pregnancy and maternity or marital or civil partnership status. The service is designed to diagnose, treat andimprove both physical and mental health. It has a duty to each and every individual that it serves and must respect their human rights.
At the same time, it has a wider social duty to promote equality through the services it provides and to pay particular attention to groups or sections of society where improvements in health and life expectancy are not keeping pace with the rest of the population.
2.
Access to NHS services is based on clinical need, not an individual’s ability to pay. NHS services are free of charge, except in limited circumstances sanctioned byParliament.
3.
The NHS aspires to the highest standards of excellence and professionalism – in the provision of high quality care that is safe, effective and focused on patient experience; in the people it employs, and in the support, education, training and development they receive; in the leadership and management of its organisations; and through its commitment to innovation and to the promotion, conduct and use of research to improve the current and future health and care of the population. Respect, dignity, compassion and care should be at the core of how patients and staff are treated not only because that is the right thing to do but because patient safety, experience and outcomes are all improved when staff are valued, empowered and supported.
6.
The NHS is committed to providing best value for taxpayers’ money and the most effective, fair and sustainable use of finite resources.
Public funds for healthcare will be devoted solely to the benefit of the people that the NHS serves.
There are pages and pages of pledges and promises of high standards. The crazy thing is that a large part of their annual budget is set aside for compensation re negligence. They know beforehand that they are NOT able to meet the standards they set themselves.
In my Dad's case his consultant was one of the top ones in the UK in that field. One of my brothers enquired at the time about a private consultation. We could have seen that SAME consultant at a hospital 30 miles away at a cost of around £500. So, it seemed logical to see that top consultant for free at an nhs hospital 3 miles away. :headhurts:
Do you see? how NEARLY it gave a good service!! It is very frustrating.
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I've also observed a fear among some people that universal health care = OMG, COMMUNISM !!!!!! :bint:
Yes, *obviously* universal healthcare means communism.
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I get the impression that US citizens don't really want a universal healthcare. Not enough of you make noise about it. Well, I don't know if that is true for certain as i only really get a feel of the place via news and TV. We don't get many reports about healthcare campaigns. Maybe it is media bias, but we often see Americans making a noise about their gun rights.
Is this an accurate picture of things?
I just thought about reactions if us Brits woke up one morning to find the nhs gone and replaced with the right to own a gun. :zoinks:
:zombiefuck: Panic
But fun. :laugh:
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying - the US healthcare is hardly your responsibility - but here are a few points:
Nobody's going to be driven into bankruptcy here because of a sudden illness and expensive medical bills. It does, however, happen in your country.
I know you're not going to be thrown out from the ER in the US if you don't have insurance, but I'm pretty sure you won't get the whole range of non-emergency treatment if that is the case. The *significantly* higher mortality rates for those 16% - 15.9% at the moment, I believe - prove that.
Yes, the quality of those actually receiving healthcare in the US is quite good. I know. It should be, considering the money the US spends on it. More than anyone else on the planet, per capita, if memory serves. It's significantly more than the money spent per capita in, say, the UK.
Why you are still unable to provide universal healthcare is beyond me.
Not really being defensive, and quite easily able to acknowledge problems in the US system. Have pointed out several times the negative aspects of problems in US health. Though it seems other people have problems doing that with their own systems. The US is bad, the UK is good, gets tiring. It's nonsense. I appreciate bodaccea being willing to say something negative; have never seen anyone here from the UK before willing to say anything negative about the NHS. The UK aren't doing it any better, just different, and yes, some people in the UK are probably are experiencing financial woes, even bankruptcy, when they can't do their jobs while waiting months for surgery. Not sure why you want to continue making the point of mortality. Thinking the mortality rates of the UK might be related to the health system, because the US has better mortality ratings than the UK and, after all, we're shooting each other over here and dying because we don't have insurance. :laugh:
I keep bringing up mortality rates because they are significant. They highlight some rather disturbing discrepancies in the healthcare of your country.
Have a look at this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-preventable-death-rate_n_1843409.html) article.
Not saying that the quality of healthcare is necessarily better in the UK, btw--the higher NHS hospital death rates do rather indicate the opposite.
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying
Jack is being logical. :M
Jack is being defensive. :M
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There's a world of difference between being refused *basic* treatment and anything more advanced. The people currently without an insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than the ones with, according to recent statistics in a Harvard study. I'd say that while they aren't thrown out, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with an insurance.
There's a world of difference between expensive treatment, and low standard treatment, and while people using the NHS don't have bills, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with insurance or paying straight out of pocket using private hospitals. Not sure why you're being so defensive about nationalized care, Odeon. Nationalized healthcare is hardly your responsibility.
http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds (http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds)
A google search of NHS mortality leads to all sorts of alarming stories of unpleasant government inquiries, unfavorable board reviews, scandals of cover ups, and what not, all recent. Probably better for people in the UK to focus on problems of the US system instead. Like the title says, UK first, US last. That works.
The NHS is being destroyed by pliticians, as Adam and others have pointed out. Rather than interpreting that as a cue to allowing private health insurances to replace national healthcare, it should be a wake-up call to fix the problems. Your system only works for those who can afford it.
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There's a world of difference between being refused *basic* treatment and anything more advanced. The people currently without an insurance have a 40% higher risk of death than the ones with, according to recent statistics in a Harvard study. I'd say that while they aren't thrown out, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with an insurance.
There's a world of difference between expensive treatment, and low standard treatment, and while people using the NHS don't have bills, they probably aren't offered the same level of care as those with insurance or paying straight out of pocket using private hospitals. Not sure why you're being so defensive about nationalized care, Odeon. Nationalized healthcare is hardly your responsibility.
http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds (http://www.channel4.com/news/nhs-hospital-death-rates-among-worst-new-study-finds)
A google search of NHS mortality leads to all sorts of alarming stories of unpleasant government inquiries, unfavorable board reviews, scandals of cover ups, and what not, all recent. Probably better for people in the UK to focus on problems of the US system instead. Like the title says, UK first, US last. That works.
The NHS is being destroyed by pliticians, as Adam and others have pointed out. Rather than interpreting that as a cue to allowing private health insurances to replace national healthcare, it should be a wake-up call to fix the problems. Your system only works for those who can afford it.
Yes it is never in safe hands long enough. The tories just keep cutting the budget.
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The NHS is being destroyed by pliticians, as Adam and others have pointed out. Rather than interpreting that as a cue to allowing private health insurances to replace national healthcare, it should be a wake-up call to fix the problems. Your system only works for those who can afford it.
That study was a ten year study. 60% more likely to die in 2004, currently only 45% more likely to die than hospitals the US. The NHS has never been run or funded properly because it's run by the government. The private sector is the only thing about the UK system that works well, and that's for people who can afford it. nationalized health is a crap system only the wealthy can afford to get away from. That's the point have been trying to make; the government shouldn't be trusted with public health. You're making that point for me, by agreeing the government is destroying it's own system. The private sector does everything better than the government. The US system works for everyone and poor people with public coverage have access to the same health system as people with private coverage. The system just has some financial problems to be addressed, and they are being addressed, without dividing the medical industry by class.
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Jack, I'm not sure why you get all defensive about what I'm saying
Jack is being logical. :M
Jack is being defensive. :M
Odeon is being defensive. :M
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Yes it is never in safe hands long enough.
That's probably the best argument against nationalized health in the entirety of this thread, for the US anyway, where the government is constantly changing. Maybe a system of royalty in rule would be in order here first. :laugh:
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I keep bringing up mortality rates because they are significant. They highlight some rather disturbing discrepancies in the healthcare of your country.
Have a look at this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-preventable-death-rate_n_1843409.html) article.
Not saying that the quality of healthcare is necessarily better in the UK, btw--the higher NHS hospital death rates do rather indicate the opposite.
The study of mortality in UK hospitals showed a considerable number of the unnessary deaths were attributed to people not receiving proper generalized care, and if the NHS general practice were proper, some of those people wouldn't have been in a hospital at all. The NHS has a lot of problems, and it's not jus the hospitals. Considering the mortality rates of both the US and UK are very similar, and the mortality rates of people without insurance in the US are as equally alarming and important as morality of people without insurance in the UK, can we at least agree both systems are shit and placing the healthcare of the public completely into the hands of government funding isn't necessarily the answer to solving the problems in the US for people who don't have insurance?
Have a look at this (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/30/us-preventable-death-rate_n_1843409.html) article.
Shall we have a link war? :laugh:
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/07July/Pages/One-in-twenty-hospital-deaths-preventable.aspx (http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/07July/Pages/One-in-twenty-hospital-deaths-preventable.aspx)
No one needs to tell me the US system has problems that need addressed, am willing to admit that, but think it's very logical the UK does no better and their system isn't a good example of how it's done better, done well, done fairly, or a reasonable place to look when considering what problems should be addressed in the US.
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Wow, really thought the hospitals were completely divided between public and private. Didn't realize the NHS is so underfunded it also services private insurance, giving first priority to patients who can pay. Doesn't that piss people off? Hasn't everyone already paid?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-hospitals-performing-private-operations-2286913 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-hospitals-performing-private-operations-2286913)
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When i was a little girl i used to think the hospitals were gifts from the Queen. I don't think i understood the meaning of the word 'national' and i knew the national anthem was a song for the Queen and so when i used to hear adults moaning about our national health service' i used to think to myself "our Queen is a meanie"
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Wow, really thought the hospitals were completely divided between public and private. Didn't realize the NHS is so underfunded it also services private insurance, giving first priority to patients who can pay. Doesn't that piss people off? Hasn't everyone already paid?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-hospitals-performing-private-operations-2286913 (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-hospitals-performing-private-operations-2286913)
The Mirror is a tabloid newspaper that supports Labour. The Sun is another tabloid but shows favouritism to The Conservatives.
None of the tabloids are credible. The Mirror has an agenda to persuade the public to vote Labour at the next election. It is trying to anger the British public. There may be a tiny element of truth in the story but most of the story is not official. The only official quote they have is kind of contradictory to their storyBut a Department of Health spokeswoman said: “These figures need to be put in context. The private income quoted is less than 0.5% of the NHS budget for 2013/14.
“This income must be reinvested back into NHS services and patients will benefit from increased investment in facilities and new technology.
"The Health and Social Care Act ensures that services for NHS patients will always come first and that the responsibility of any NHS organisation is to provide NHS services and any private work is supplementary.
“Any patient should be seen in order of clinical priority. Average waiting times are low and stable, and the number of patients waiting longer than 18 weeks is nearly 55,000 lower than in May 2010.”
If you look at one of their shocking statements "Under the controversial NHS shake-up, hospitals can now earn up to 50% of income from private work." Note how they say 'can'.
and
"He said there was growing evidence that patients are being forced to go private because they are being turned away from the NHS or spending so long on waiting lists."
It is a cleverly worded article but the 'growing evidence' is not included.
"Dr Clive Peedell, co-leader of the National Health Action Party, said lifting the cap on private treatments would see a rise in waiting NHS lists." even this man who is a co-leader of the National Health Action Party only states the the would be consequences. BTW the National Health Action Party is just a micky mouse group of people with no official status.
In a nutshell, the tabloid press are notorious for political bias, gossip, hearsay tittle-tattle. I include the Daily Mail in that list although it believes it is above the tabloids. It's not.
There are a few credible papers, and the aptly named 'Independent' would be my paper of choice if i wanted truth.
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I would not tell ANY country to copy our universal health care. I would say that any country considering this should really look closer at all the other places in the world that do it so much better than us.
Italy, Greece, Spain etc. I think Iceland has no private healthcare, certainly no private hospitals.
I think introducing this system in the US would also be a logistical nightmare. Like it has been pointed out, the power shifts between political parties quite often (like here) and it might suffer the same fate - it gets funded correctly for a few years and then it gets stripped of cash. The US is HUGE compared to the UK and i can't think of many other places of such a size that could be comparable. Maybe Russia. I know they have inherited the old Soviet system ( :o communism!) but now has a private sector too. I don't think it ranks highly at the moment but Putin is improving this area.
I also doubt the political climate in USA is the right time to implement a universal health system. If you look at the birth of the NHS it was a different time altogether. 1948 / 49 - a massive rebuilding and restructuring was implemented at the end of the war. You know that saying "if you want something doing then ask a busy person".... there had been talk of a national health service before the war. About twenty years previously the UK bought in the National Health Contributions system which gave every working man/woman an allocated GP. There was an awful lot going on and i honestly believe if we hadn't done it when we did it would probably never have happened. There was still much squalor here left over from the Victorians and the bombings. The public politely 'demanded' it and mostly the whole of the Medical Profession backed it. It was a huge undertaking. The climate in the US is not the same.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG/1280px-Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG)
This map shows life expectancy rates by country. The UK is only slightly higher than the US.
I was shocked to read that a man born in Japan can expect to live to about 82 compared to parts of Africa which is only 47 years old.
That just sucks.
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The Mirror is a tabloid newspaper that supports Labour.
Thanks for making that point. Never really know what sites are considered reliable sources in the UK. There's actually a large number of articles on the web claiming basically the same thing, the NHS has been legally allowed by current legislation to subsidize its income by catering to the private sector for up to 50% of its income, when before it was very restricted to 2%. How can the NHS serve the private sector when there's a waiting list for people who can't pay? Can't understand how something like the NHS gets away with charging patients at all, much being allowed to accommodate half of their beds to people with private insurance.
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I would say that any country considering this should really look closer at all the other places in the world that do it so much better than us.
Think it's better when countries look at their own issues. What works in one place doesn't work it others. Wouldn't suggest the UK should get rid of the NHS any more than would suggest the US needs one. Just don't think either one is necessarily better than the other.
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The Mirror is a tabloid newspaper that supports Labour.
Thanks for making that point. Never really know what sites are considered reliable sources in the UK. There's actually a large number of articles on the web claiming basically the same thing, the NHS has been legally allowed by current legislation to subsidize its income by catering to the private sector for up to 50% of its income, when before it was very restricted to 2%. How can the NHS serve the private sector when there's a waiting list for people who can't pay? Can't understand how something like the NHS gets away with charging patients at all, much being allowed to accommodate half of their beds to people with private insurance.
If it has been going, and nothing would surprise me, it is because it is not in safe hands at the moment. It is governed by people who favour a private system.
It is unlikely to catch on as you would feel short changed if you paid privately and ended up in an nhs hospital.
It is really the hospital that people pay for. Private hospitals are generally known to be much better.
Can't understand how something like the NHS gets away with charging patients at all, much being allowed to accommodate half of their beds to people with private insurance.
All people with private policies have paid their way to nhs services as well through their taxes. People with private insurance pay twice.
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I would say that any country considering this should really look closer at all the other places in the world that do it so much better than us.
Think it's better when countries look at their own issues. What works in one place doesn't work it others. Wouldn't suggest the UK should get rid of the NHS any more than would suggest the US needs one. Just don't think either one is necessarily better than the other.
The nhs has been a good way to bridge the gap between rich and poor. It is supposed to produce equality in health care. It has done this in some areas. This is vital for poor people in the UK. You are all born equal in the US. In the UK it is much harder to break out of the class system and the old boys network.
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(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/75/Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG/1280px-Life_Expectancy_2005-2010_UN_WPP_2006.PNG)
This map shows life expectancy rates by country. The UK is only slightly higher than the US.
I was shocked to read that a man born in Japan can expect to live to about 82 compared to parts of Africa which is only 47 years old.
That just sucks.
The luck of the draw starts with where your born then moves onto how much money your parents have it seems
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The NHS is being destroyed by pliticians, as Adam and others have pointed out. Rather than interpreting that as a cue to allowing private health insurances to replace national healthcare, it should be a wake-up call to fix the problems. Your system only works for those who can afford it.
That study was a ten year study. 60% more likely to die in 2004, currently only 45% more likely to die than hospitals the US. The NHS has never been run or funded properly because it's run by the government. The private sector is the only thing about the UK system that works well, and that's for people who can afford it. nationalized health is a crap system only the wealthy can afford to get away from. That's the point have been trying to make; the government shouldn't be trusted with public health. You're making that point for me, by agreeing the government is destroying it's own system. The private sector does everything better than the government. The US system works for everyone and poor people with public coverage have access to the same health system as people with private coverage. The system just has some financial problems to be addressed, and they are being addressed, without dividing the medical industry by class.
oh jeebus. There's so many things wrong with that comment I don't know where to start.
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:shrug: It could have been worded better.
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I found this. It is a long read. If anyone can be bothered. Maybe just try reading the bold bits.
It is written by an American woman who lived and worked here for fifteen years but now resides back in America. So her perspective is unlike others here - she has had real experience of both systems. She points out things i had not considered.
http://potentialandexpectations.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/this-americans-experience-of-britains-healthcare-system/
As the healthcare debate picks up pace, I find myself being asked with increasing regularity what I think of Britain’s healthcare system. Six months ago, I’d have jumped into the answer with gusto, but these days… I don’t know, I am just so fatigued by all the fear-mongering and hysteria, the ignorance and the downright idiocy of the current debate that I can hardly summon the energy to add my voice to the cacophony.
But the other night when a friend of my mother’s emailed me and asked that now-familiar question — what was my experience and what did I think of British health care? — and I was surprised to discover that, once the initial weariness had worn off, I found myself turning her question over and over in my mind, composing my answer. When I sat down last night and started my reply, the words fell out me, my fingers tapping rapidly at the keyboard and my mind so engrossed in the assignment that I was stunned when I finally looked at the clock: it was 2.30 in the morning. I had been so consumed because what I had to say had been bursting to come out, an outraged truth that was tired of being bottled-up and was begging to be told.
When I lived in the UK, I railed against the NHS (the National Health Service). I cursed every delay, every perceived inconvenience, every way it differed from the care I had received in the US. But I moved to the UK only a few months after graduating from university and, until then, I had been covered on my parents’ very generous insurance so I had experienced American healthcare only as a dependent. I was judging my British experience from a lofty and privileged position of someone who’d always had gold-plated insurance. And I was naive, because I’d never had to pay for it, never had to worry it wouldn’t be there, never really had to deal with the paperwork. I never really understood what I was comparing the NHS to at all.
I also realise with hindsight that a lot of what I held against the NHS had nothing to do with the system itself and actually were issues that could happen in any system. I blamed the whole system when the loo in my local doctor’s office or hospital wasn’t clean enough. I blamed the whole system when the only space I could find at the hospital carpark was miles away in the very furthest corner. I blamed the whole system when the doctors’ receptionist was grumpy or I didn’t much like my doctor’s manner (or his diagnosis). But the truth was that I believed in the healthcare system I had grown up in and I didn’t like the idea of socialised medicine — I didn’t like socialised anything — so I saw problems with it where-ever I chose to look. And I held onto that belief right up until I arrived back in the United States, and discovered that grumpy receptionists and dirty hospital bathrooms and annoying carparks can happen in any system — because they have nothing to do with the system itself. They’re management issues, human nature issues, and they happen everywhere. And a lot of the fear that Americans have about change in their healthcare actually center around these kind of issues that have nothing to do with the system itself, be it socialised or for-profit.
So my return to the US and my sudden immersion in the American healthcare system was a rude awakening for me and it made me look at both systems a little more realistically. There are great things about healthcare in the US — great things — and I truly do believe that the quality of the care here is second to none. But there are great things to be said about Britain’s system as well and the trouble is that, at present, far too few people are saying those great things and far too many here in the US are beginning to believe utterly ridiculous things about the NHS. Let me play a small part in putting that right by outlining my experience of the British healthcare system.
First, I’ll start by pointing out that the NHS is truly one of the most socialist — almost Soviet — healthcare models that a country could possible choose. Unlike the health systems in France, Germany, and most of the rest of the developed world, it is totally government-run, almost totally centrally-controlled, and supported entirely through taxation. It is mammoth — the single largest employer in Europe, which is incredible when you realise it serves a small country with only 60million people. And with that kind of size come huge problems — consultation times are too short and it takes too long to get test results, amongst other things. It is not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s important to realise that when I talk about my experience, I am talking about the kind of system that truly is the very far extreme of what the nay-sayers are claiming will be the end result of public health provision in the US. The British system is the very stuff of their nightmares and yet, the truth is, it’s nothing like what they imagine.
My healthcare in the UK was never dictated by a bureaucrat. Decisions were made by me and my doctor alone, and whatever we decided was the right course of action was the course that was taken. The scope of care available to me was far, far wider than what is covered even by the ‘very good’ insurance policies I’ve had here in the US. There were no limits on the number of times I could see my doctor, or the number of tests/procedures/consultations/etc that I could have in a year (or month or lifetime…) Whatever was deemed medically necessary by my doctor was covered — period. In fact, I’ve experienced a lot more limitations on my care since I’ve moved back to the US — the most memorable of which was when I had to beg the insurance company to cover a single visit to a nutritionist when E2 was diagnosed with 12 food allergies and was severely underweight. That simply never would have happened in the UK — if she needed it (and she did), she’d have got it (as her sister did after being diagnosed with a single allergy). To illustrate the point further, when I gave birth to E1, I stayed in hospital for five days because she had problems with breastfeeding — and that was entirely my decision. I was free to leave hospital whenever I wanted, be that after one day or after a week, and I had the full support of the midwives to stay until they were sure we were breastfeeding properly and ready to leave — no administrator/bureaucrat/insurance company made that decision for me!
There are delays — there are delays — but to be honest I have experienced delays just as bad here in the US. In the UK, I might have to wait weeks or months to see a specialist if my case was not urgent, and that was frustrating. Here in the US, when I was in excruciating pain last year (so bad that I lost control of my bodily functions when the pain hit), I was referred to a breast surgeon by the ER doctor (7 hour wait in ER) — but the trouble is that we had to call five medical centers before we could find a surgeon who could see me any sooner six weeks, and even then it was only because they had a surprise cancellation. And the last time I needed to take E2 to the allergist here in the US, the earliest they could fit me in was two months later. There are delays in both systems. And by contrast, you can get very speedy service in the US… and you can get it in the UK too. When I needed to see my GP in the UK, I rarely had to wait until even the next day. When I thought I’d found a lump in my breast, I saw the doctor the next day and was sent to a specialist within the week.
I had my choice of doctors. My small rural town had two GP offices (a GP is a General Practitioner, a family doctor) with about 5 GPs in each office — I could choose either office and any GP in that office I chose. I could choose to go to the GPs office in a neighbouring town if I prefered (though some offices limit the regional area they’ll cover). I could change GPs at anytime for any reason, no questions asked. When I had my babies, I had my choice of any of the hospitals in the region, or a homebirth (the midwives in my area loved doing homebirths!). When my GP referred me to a specialist, he’d send me to whomever he thought best, but if I wanted someone or somewhere else, I could request that, no problem. And I always had the option of a second opinion, either through another NHS doctor or a private doctor.
I never once received a bill in the UK. There are no copays, there are no deductibles, there is no such thing as max-out-of-pocket. I have an NHS card which I showed at my GP’s office when I registered, and from that point on, I never had to fill out any forms or show any ID ever again. In fact, I think I lost my NHS card years ago — I have no idea where it is. It doesn’t matter — I don’t need because I am covered for everything once I am registered with my GP. When I stepped on a piece of glass and sliced up my foot, I went up to the local hospital, was seen immediately (rural hospital on a Tuesday afternoon), they took note of my name and address, patched me up, and I went home — simple as that. No bills, no paperwork, no hassle. Yes, Brits pay to cover it in their taxes, but the cost spread across the entire country and so it isn’t nearly the burden that insurance is for Americans. In fact, Brits spend only 8.4% of GDP on healthcare, compared to the 16% of GDP spent by Americans and what they get back is a system beats the US on so many basic measures of healthcare results. This is good quality care.
Brits believe that healthcare is a human right and are happy to have a system that covers everyone, all the time. They are HORRIFIED when they hear stories of Americans who have to hold fundraisers to pay for desperately-needed operations. It blows their minds that anyone goes bankrupt or loses their home because of medical bills. The idea that someone would lose their coverage because of a pre-existing condition or because they are so sick they can’t work is totally alien to them. These things simply do not happen in Britain.
Even with a comprehensive healthcare system that is available to all and completely free (at the point of delivery) the UK still has a healthy private system running alongside the state system. There are numerous large private insurance companies providing private health insurance to those who’d like to have it (or whose companies want to offer it). There are private hospitals up and down the country. Most specialists practice both within the NHS and also privately (they split their weeks). You can pretty much get your healthcare however you’d like — on the NHS, through private insurance, or paid out of your own pocket. I hear people in the US saying that with in the British system, you can’t see anyone but your government-assigned doctor, but that is totally untrue. And you can chop and change your care as it fits your life — I’ve had my care for an medical issue start on the NHS, and then switched my care to my private insurance if it suited my needs better. I’ve had other medical issues that I stayed with the NHS for the whole way. And when my husband had an elective medical procedure done that was covered by neither the NHS nor insurance, we simply paid for it out of pocket. It’s a flexible system and the private sector has not been quashed by the fact that there is a comprehensive, free public system running alongside it.
Because healthcare is not tied to employment, companies are free to focus on their core business and people are free to make career decisions (and life decisions) based on what is best for them instead of what preserves their healthcare. Brits never worry about keeping their healthcover — they never worry about pre-existing conditions; they never worry about continuity of care if they change jobs; they never get trapped into a bad-fit job because they have to keep their healthcover. They are much freer to be entreprenuers than Americans, because their only worry is whether their business will succeed, not how they’re going to provide healthcover for their families when they’re self-employed. Companies, particularly small companies, are free to focus on their core-business because they not burdened by the administration of healthcare for their employees — they never have to pay someone in HR to manage health benefits; they don’t have to juggle insurance companies and negotiate lower premiums; they don’t lose employees because their healthplan isn’t as good as some other company; they don’t see their bottom line rocked by a sudden rise in premiums. Decoupling healthcare from employment is hugely freeing to both individuals and employers, and can actually a very good thing for the economy at large.
When things go wrong, the government answers to the people in a way that insurance companies never do. For example, there was a cancer drug called Herceptin which was not covered on the NHS because of the cost. A group (led by Ann Marie Rogers) began a campaign to change this, suing their local health trust, and gained huge public support. They ultimately won their case and got their local trust to offer the drug — but because of the political pressure this campaign had created, the government extended the drug to the entire country. Imagine trying to convince an American insurance company to cover some expensive drug that they don’t want to cover, and then having that decision convince every other insurance company to do the same. And again, when I moved to the UK fifteen years ago, wait times in the NHS were much worse than they are now — but the public got fed up with it, made their voices heard in the General Election, and the new administration made cleaning up the NHS one of their highest priorities.
There is an emphasis on preventative care and the simplest way this happens is that people actually go to see their doctor when they are sick. Because there’s no cap on visits and no copay and everyone is covered, hardly anyone hesitates to go to the doctor when they need to, which gives them a chance to catch little issues before they become big issues and spot contagious diseases before they spread to the rest of the population. And here’s another way the focus is on prevention: when I had my babies, the midwives came to my house to check on us every day for the first 10 days after the baby was born, and then the Health Visitor (a community nurse) came to the house once a week for six weeks, and then I could go to her clinic (held once a week in town) for as long as I wanted after that with any concerns I might have (as well as being able to see a doctor — my choice). It’s all done to ensure the mother and baby are healthy and well, to support breastfeeding, and to catch problems as early as possible. I was utterly shocked when I found out that most new mums in the US are simply sent home with their babies, with no follow up in the first six weeks, and left to muddle through as best they can!
None of this actually tells you anything. Isolated anecdotal stories (like these) don’t actually give anyone the information they need to decide the merits of one system over another. All it does is tell you whether my particular doctor was good or bad, whether the nurse I encountered was having a good day or a bad day, whether the receptionist liked her job or hated it. There are good stories and bad in both systems, and it just depends on who you talk to. It’s much like public schools. You could ask parents across the US to tell you what they think of their kid’s school and you’d get a whole spectrum of answers: some schools are good, some are bad, some districts are rich, some are poor, some teachers are passionate, some have lost the will to live. But none of these things tells you whether the overall concept of publicly-funded schools is a good or bad one. If you drew your conclusions based on a bunch of stories from a handful of people about their personal experiences, you’d only be getting part of the story. And it’s no different with the concept of public healthcare.
I can sum up my experience of the British and American healthcare systems in one simple sentence: given a choice between the two systems, I’d choose the NHS in a heartbeat. And though this is the experience of only one single person out of millions, unlike so much of the propaganda and hysteria surrounding the current healthcare debate, it is the absolute Gospel truth.
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Addendum: This is an incredibly important issue with a lot of misinformation flying about. If you have experience of both the US and UK healthcare systems, I invite you to please leave a comment here and let us all know what you think of both systems. This debate needs more voices of experience and a lot less uninformed fear.
The nhs runs much better under a Labour government. So, yeah, the government, and the changing of it every few years is its main problem. I think things would be much worse if our healthcare here was totally private. Fat cats making huge profits while people become bankrupt in order to stay alive. :thumbdn:
Also, the assumption that the Private clinics in the UK get better results is far from accurate. There are some fields Private Clinics boast better results. Fertility, or IVF is one. They are also credited with being the best in hip replacement, knee replacements etc. Cosmetic surgery, dentistry and laser eye surgery too. When you come to look at the major life threatening illnesses like cancers and heart disease then outcomes are either similar or better with nhs. Cancer Research UK say to patients on their website that there is very little difference in outcomes. Private hospitals however do provide a better standard of accommodation, that is fact. Also, a posh little doily thing under your cup of tea. :)
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The results of ten year independent study for quality of care by an organization which works directly with the NHS as an analysis consultant probably says more about the reality of the matter than one person's anecdotal perspective. Though at least she's aware of that too.
None of this actually tells you anything. Isolated anecdotal stories (like these) don’t actually give anyone the information they need to decide the merits of one system over another.
Going to stick with the stance that both are problematic, one isn't any better than the other, and the UK isn't the answer to problems in the US.
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The NHS is being destroyed by pliticians, as Adam and others have pointed out. Rather than interpreting that as a cue to allowing private health insurances to replace national healthcare, it should be a wake-up call to fix the problems. Your system only works for those who can afford it.
That study was a ten year study. 60% more likely to die in 2004, currently only 45% more likely to die than hospitals the US. The NHS has never been run or funded properly because it's run by the government. The private sector is the only thing about the UK system that works well, and that's for people who can afford it. nationalized health is a crap system only the wealthy can afford to get away from. That's the point have been trying to make; the government shouldn't be trusted with public health. You're making that point for me, by agreeing the government is destroying it's own system. The private sector does everything better than the government. The US system works for everyone and poor people with public coverage have access to the same health system as people with private coverage. The system just has some financial problems to be addressed, and they are being addressed, without dividing the medical industry by class.
Sorry but this is just not correct. The US spends more money on healthcare per capita than any other nation on earth, yet 16% of the population does not have a health insurance and as a result have a significantly higher mortality rate than the rest. Your system does not work for everyone.
Private health providers should not be trusted with national health care. It is never in their interest to give expensive treatments to people who can't pay for them.
In your country, universal healthcare is not a right, it's simply something enough money may be able to buy.
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Yes it is never in safe hands long enough.
That's probably the best argument against nationalized health in the entirety of this thread, for the US anyway, where the government is constantly changing. Maybe a system of royalty in rule would be in order here first. :laugh:
Actually, one only has to look at your recent history to see that your alternative does not work.
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Bodie is probably right in pointing out that the NHS works better under a Labour government. It is my impression that the system is being dismantled by a government that does not seem to know what the alternative should be.
The NHS is not necessarily the answer, but it doesn't mean that nationalised healthcare can't be.
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Can someone please explain to me how a higher rate of people dying in hospitals is being interpreted as an unambiguous sign of a lower quality of care? Is the problem that they're supposed to be sending people home for hospice quicker?
Personally I can see this going either way- it could be a sign of hospital negligence to have an elevated hospital death rate, but to have a lower hospital death rate could just mean they're sending people home too early and they're dying outside the hospital.
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Can someone please explain to me how a higher rate of people dying in hospitals is being interpreted as an unambiguous sign of a lower quality of care? Is the problem that they're supposed to be sending people home for hospice quicker?
Personally I can see this going either way- it could be a sign of hospital negligence to have an elevated hospital death rate, but to have a lower hospital death rate could just mean they're sending people home too early and they're dying outside the hospital.
The thought crossed my mind too. When my dad got the verdict that he was not treatable, he was sent home, with the possibility of getting care at home when needed. And the option of being back immediately, if pain treatment required it. Best option ever. And great care at home. Not intruding more than needed, very respectful, and very caring. And they would not only check how the patient was doing, also how the relatives were keeping up.
Lots of people die at home here, though it does differ per hospital.
There will be a 40% cutting back on care at home, next year though. :zombiefuck: Probably will lead to more people dying in a hospital.
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Also, we have seen closures of old peoples homes. Community care is now the preferred choice and keeping them in their own homes as long as possible is probably what the old folk want. However, nhs hospitals are now having to have them when they get sick, in the past they would have stayed in their nursing homes.
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Also, we have seen closures of old peoples homes. Community care is now the preferred choice and keeping them in their own homes as long as possible is probably what the old folk want. However, nhs hospitals are now having to have them when they get sick, in the past they would have stayed in their nursing homes.
That's what is about to happen here.
Old folks homes only are allowed to cater for people with the highest care indication, since this year, the rest has to go and live on themselves again, with care at home. So, bigger pressure on caring at home. And, next year, there will be a 40% cutting on the budget of care at home.
People will be in hospitals more and they will cost a lot more too. Logic outcome.
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Some councils operate a scheme to 'foster' elderly people. This could bring in £250 + per week per household.
If you are a carer for a family member then the maximum you can get is £60 per week.
??? I have to question the wisdom of a government that encourages people not to look after their own family but take a stranger into their home instead.
Nutters.
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Some councils operate a scheme to 'foster' elderly people. This could bring in £250 + per week per household.
If you are a carer for a family member then the maximum you can get is £60 per week.
??? I have to question the wisdom of a government that encourages people not to look after their own family but take a stranger into their home instead.
Nutters.
The current government has bugger all wisdom. :dunno:
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Can someone please explain to me how a higher rate of people dying in hospitals is being interpreted as an unambiguous sign of a lower quality of care? Is the problem that they're supposed to be sending people home for hospice quicker?
Personally I can see this going either way- it could be a sign of hospital negligence to have an elevated hospital death rate, but to have a lower hospital death rate could just mean they're sending people home too early and they're dying outside the hospital.
The link previously posted for the NHS site discussion of the study explained it wasn't simply a study of mortality, but also efficiency and quality of care. It's not an interpretation based simply on mortality rate, but what's causing the mortality rate.
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Can someone please explain to me how a higher rate of people dying in hospitals is being interpreted as an unambiguous sign of a lower quality of care? Is the problem that they're supposed to be sending people home for hospice quicker?
Personally I can see this going either way- it could be a sign of hospital negligence to have an elevated hospital death rate, but to have a lower hospital death rate could just mean they're sending people home too early and they're dying outside the hospital.
The thought did cross my mind. I don't suppose anyone here has checked this?
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The thought did cross my mind. I don't suppose anyone here has checked this?
Yes, there must be some reasonable excuse for the mortality rate, other than the fact NHS hospitals rate last in quality of care in the civilized world. The few NHS hospitals that rated well must be sending people home early to die at home. It's probably not that they're actually good hospitals. It couldn't possibly be the NHS has some very serious problems. The NHS gives credence to this data for no reason. Maybe you and Elle should check on that, if it's going to be the assertion. It must not be true. Though I don't suppose anyone has checked this.
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Should just go back to looking at the chart. That's what people want to see.