England & Canada question

[Lady's Human]

I think the reason we hear about Canada and the UK while talking about health care is that we can relate to those countries easily.

On the surface we're very similar.

[Edwina's Secretary]

I'd like to know more about the system in France - as they have the highest quality healthcare.

Anyone know?

[blue]

Didnt Michael Moore allready make the comparisons?

[WHITEPOST]With lies, half truths, and outright deceptions?[/WHITEPOST]

[blue]

Whodathunkit? Blue's a moderator?

I got banned from the last site I was a moderator on.

The OP's 4 questions could have been answerred more easily without the 5th question.

No socialist health care system, that I know of, says anybody over a certain age is cut of from certain procedures. There are systems that take age into account regaurding certain procedures.

IE. someone who is 50 will get a heart stint before someone who is 65. Someone who is 45 will get a hip replacement before an 78 year old. And yes I pulled those numbers out of the air.

[Killearn Kitties]

I didn’t respond to this thread originally, because by the time I saw it Prairie Purrs had already posted the link refuting the claims of the email.

I can’t compare the two systems because I have no experience of the American one, nor do I know what changes are being proposed. It seems though that some people are interested in hearing people’s experience with other systems. Everybody here is entitled to healthcare through the NHS (National Health Service) funded through taxation. The individual does not pay for operations, treatment, hospital clinic, or doctor’s appointments. There is a prescription charge if you require medication. I think it is currently running around £5 or so. My father-in-law suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and gets two carrier bags worth of pills at a time, poor man. As a pensioner, he is exempt from prescription charges. In fact the Scottish Government aims to abolish prescription charges altogether by 2011.

In addition to that, I have private healthcare insurance as a benefit through my work, which I used once. The details are just too disgusting to recount here, but basically I had had an ear infection and the eardrum had perforated, so I was supposed to keep water away from inside the ear. I was going on holiday a couple of months later and wanted to be able to swim and dive, so the doctor requested an appointment from an ear specialist at a hospital clinic. When my appointment came through it was after my holiday – clearly a bit of gunge in the ear is not a life-threatening condition – so I got a private appointment for the following week instead.

It seems to me that when people have moans about the health service, they are aimed at the changes and cost-cutting measures, but not at the concept of universal healthcare itself. The system is in financial crisis though, and it is tinkered with constantly in an attempt keep costs down. Britain faces the same problems of an ageing population that other similar countries face.

[Prairie Purrs]

Just as an illustration of the woeful lack of knowledge on the part of some of the people who are opining on the health care issue, here's a quote from "Investor's Business Daily":

People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.

I'm sure that would come as a surprise to Mr. Hawking, who was born in Oxford, England, and is a professor at the University of Cambridge. He currently is recovering from a recent illness, after treatment at a National Health Service hospital.

[Medusa]

I emailed my friend who lives in England and asked about the quality of care there as opposed to here. I met her in Sedona, AZ and she was diagnosed w/anal cancer and was treated in the U.S. for it. In the second paragraph she answered my question about long waits to be seen by a doctor. Here is her email back to me that I copied and pasted:

"hey Mary, well the quality of care is the same the only difference is that in USA the docs order all kinds of tests like CT MRI etc cos the insurance company picking up the bill whereas here its the NHS so they are reluctant to go on a fishing expedition and only order the appropriate test they feel is needed. The one superior thing here is aftercare once you are released from hospital there is another side to the NHS which is based in the community we call them district nurses and community doc (GPs) they come round (Nurses) once or twice a day depending on your circumstances to administer any care such as drugs/ wound care etc and then there the Carers who come round to do your personal care such as washing you etc. As well as all that there are national charities that specialise in illnesses (such as mine Marie Curie Cancer) who supply nurses for that specific illness and my charity does this only at night so whoever is looking after you can go to bed and get some rest. There are different ones for every illness imagineable and they operate free of charge as well.
So I would have to say that over here is much better as it is more specialised in areas and of course it is all free."

"No there are people that have this concept that you have to wait, it used to be the case before this government changed it now if you need say a hip replacement you have to be seen by I think it is 2 months or something like that, age is not an issue, because it is one party that has improved it the oppositiion party try to manipulate the figures, you know how it is with politics. They may have had their operations a while ago when they did have to wait. I went down to my docs office the other day Thursday and got an appoiuntment for the next day. They make the referral to the specialist and then you get a letter from them telling you when and it has to be within a certain time frame or if they cant fit you in within that then they have to offer you a private specialist and the NHS picks up the bill"

[Laura's Babies]

I'd like to know more about the system in France - as they have the highest quality healthcare.

Those answers could be right here, depending on what it is you want to know.
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/11...a,-and-England

[Medusa]

My concern is that for every link that we read for health ins. reform, we can read a link that's against it. For every person that says socialized medicine is good, there's another person who says it isn't. How are we supposed to decide for ourselves? Plus, if the bill is 1000+ pages that hasn't even been read or understood, how could they possibly implement it? My biggest gut feeling tells me that if they're trying to rush it through, it's probably w/good reason and not in our favor.

[Killearn Kitties]

My concern is that for every link that we read for health ins. reform, we can read a link that's against it. For every person that says socialized medicine is good, there's another person who says it isn't. How are we supposed to decide for ourselves?

I feel that this can be said about every political issue on the planet. There are a lot of vested interests and they all have their own agenda.

[Edwina's Secretary]

Those answers could be right here, depending on what it is you want to know.
http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/11...a,-and-England

Thank you Laura. That is VERY informative. And again leads me to ask...why aren't these facts a part of the discussion?

[Killearn Kitties]

Just as an illustration of the woeful lack of knowledge on the part of some of the people who are opining on the health care issue, here's a quote from "Investor's Business Daily":
I'm sure that would come as a surprise to Mr. Hawking, who was born in Oxford, England, and is a professor at the University of Cambridge. He currently is recovering from a recent illness, after treatment at a National Health Service hospital.

That just beggars belief.

[smokey the elder]

There was an article with a chart showing the largest contributors to waste in American health care. One of the largest bars on this chart was excessive testing. (I can't remember what the other one was; I need to go dig around for the link to the article.) The excessive testing may be linked to the tort law in this country; people tend to like to sue. Tort reform may need to be coupled to health care reform in order to help reduce this one source of waste.

Here's just one link, by Price Waterhouse Coopers, which cited excessive testing as the #1 waste source. Americans' life style choices were #3. http://www.pwc.com/us/en/healthcare/...f-excess.jhtml

[Medusa]

I feel that this can be said about every political issue on the planet. There are a lot of vested interests and they all have their own agenda.

I don't disagree except for what I said in the rest of my post.

[Randi]

What KK and Medusa's friend described, is pretty much how it works in Denmark too. There can be short waiting lists for things that are not life threatening, like a hip operation. If the patient requires immediate attention, he/she will be referred to a private hospital and NHS will pay the bill.

Like in UK, everybody here is entitled to healthcare through the NHS (National Health Service) funded through taxation. The individual does not pay for operations, treatment, hospital clinic, or doctor’s appointments. However, we do pay for dentist treatment.

If someone need a lot of prescription medicine, they pay the full amount for it the first time, and after that, the amount is deducted with a certain percentage for the following purchases for one year, so that you pay less and less. It starts all over again after a year.