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Socialized Communist Healthcare (Canadians, Brits, et al)
Posts
City water bill, yes, but you still have to pay for the water you use in your kitchen / bathroom ^^
Wait what? Then what does city water cover if not the water you use?
Watering public parcs for example, or cleaning streets with water
Well, I wouldn't really want the UK system, either, frankly. I wouldn't want to go to a huge monolithic bureaucracy for my medical care. I like have a plurality of private providers in their own little offices to choose from. I like having the option to pay cash to almost any physician for almost any service - if I can afford it.
But there is a lot of middle ground between complete or near-complete socialization of the system (as in, for example, Canada; and to a lesser extent the UK) and the clusterfuck we have in the US. Luckily, all the people who are seriously looking at the problem in the US - like Obama's plan, the Massachusetts system, the San Francisco system - are trying to figure out where to strike that balance.
My healthcare costs this year - a 30-year-old mostly healthy adult male on antidepressants who had to get emergency treatment for a kidney stone - are going to amount to about 6-7% of my income, if you also factor in the contribution my employer makes to my health insurance premium (based on the admittedly naive assumption that if they didn't have to pay their share, they could pay me a little bit more).
The NHS is more complicated than a single monolithic bureaucracy.
GPs (family doctors) are mostly self employed working in partnership with other GPs in a local practices which bill the local NHS trust/board for the care provided You are absolutely not restricted to which practice you go to, to see the doctor, just that your registered practice will have all your files.
This.
When the Americans here start bitching about health costs in the presidency thread my eyes just glaze over, its so far from anything I would ever have to seriously consider during my life. Having properly read some of the posts here makes me realise just how much worse our system could be.
What he said.
Also, here in blighty land we love a good complaint. We complain about everything, we have two specialisations of complaining the weather and the NHS. A while back (say 1980's) it was valid because the government at the time hated the idea of a public healthcare system therefore not investing in it properly.
However nowadays frankly it's first class, every time i've been to a hospital, local clinic etc it's always been ridiculously fast and efficient. For example a couple of years ago the local clinic was knocked down and a brand new building put in its place, complete with fancy touch screen displays etc.
The NHS is awash in cash right now.
Simple fact is that the only healthcare systems that work are socialised ones, just like the police, fire brigade etc.
If the USA spent the same amount of money that they currently spend on a socialised medical system I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly jumped from 37th to the top 10 within 5 years or so.
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I've got a spare copy of Portal, if anyone wants it message me.
Do it now! Do it now!
So physicians aren't directly employed by the NHS? Huh, I guess I was misinformed.
If it works like OHIP does here, the government and the physicians associations get together every once in a while and negotiate prices for certain services, and then the physicians bill the government for services rendered.
In Denmark the GP's have private practices, the specialists either have private or are employed at hospitals. Most hospitals are government owned but some are private.
FYI, Canadian GP's are also private operators who bill the government for their services.