I know there are some members here from these places and I also know that you have seen all these posts on Healthcare debate concerning the US and the current strife it has caused on both sides.

 Can you give us some insight on how you feel about it in your own countries and experiences with it,(Good and Bad).

 I ask only a couple of things in the replies :

 1. Please be HONEST.Whether you are Conservative or Liberal Leaning ,if it is not your honest opinion it will pretty much make this a waste of yours and everyone else's time

 2. ADULTS ONLY ,No disrespect meant to our younger board members,but unless you have lived on your own (ie being responsible for yourself finacially,emotionally and basically able to survive on your own with little to no help from other sources) due to having maturity to realize benefits as well as cons that can occur with this type of system and not just being The "COOL" thing to do.

 If we can keep this civil so that tempers wont taint this discussion.

 I haved lived in the USA all my life so other than some trips I dont have experience with healthcare in other counties.

Well, first off it's not "free", National Insurance is the largest contributor which sets the average earner back somewhere around £60 per month and prescription medicine has to be purchased.

For minor treatments, expect waiting times to be crazy but for everything else, it works perfectly. Having had 3 close family members with serious illness' over recent years I can only have praise for the NHS and the work they do.

I'll pass this time. A few of us already said how it work  nice for us in here (Canada) but we just get targeted by the right wing right after.. 

" THOSES ARE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND CANNOT BE USED TO DESCRIB YOUR SYSTEM AT LARGE "

And then they point out there own personal situation where a Canadian go to the US for treatment  and somehow they are right and not us...  it's the fricking same kind of argument and it's only ok for them to use it...

I'm from the UK.

I've never voted.

I've never used public health.

I consider myself to be right wing.

My sister works in the finance department at the largest hospital in the region. My cousins a doctor and my 85 year old dad is a regular patient who I take there once or twice a week. there's no waiting and has been no delays on any surgery, although I once had to wait 4 hours for him to get a bed.

On the NHS, usually he is in a ward with 2-6 others. Private he gets his own room.

I'm young enough and fit enough to have no health issues, so it isn't a big deal that I go private. I don't have any insurance scheme. When I was a child I used the national health service dentist, but he pulled out loads of my teeth and loads more of my sisters.I remember him now with his feet right up on the chair by my head, pulling. He got the right one on his fourth time. The same one I had been pointing at all along.  Since then I have gone private.

I like private, the premises are swankier and the nurses stick their breasts in my face when they brush my teeth more. Excellent service, value for money. Also, I can and have easily changed my doctor when I didn't like him. My dental bills are about 50% more than the ones I used to see advertised in the U.S during the nineties.

My dad used to go private, but these days he is in so often, with cancer, heart problems, kidney problems and all the other stuff 85 year olds get, I doubt he feels he can afford to. If indeed he could even get treated as fast in a private hospital. They might have the specialists, but I doubt they have the equipment.

The service is good. The hospital is clean. People there are really friendly and nurses float my boat. Without them, he would have died of cancer the other year, they seem to know what they are doing.

My cousin's a doctor at the biggest hospital in London.He has practised in the U.S.
  His American wife is pregnant and wanted to go private. He wouldn't stand for it. Give him NHS or give him a dead wife and child. She was none to pleased at the idea.  

My sister often talks about her job over diner. It's massively political.

It's a good job and it pays well. Since it's a government job it pays well and has all the perks and legal trimmings you would expect. Paid holiday, sick pay. Flexi hours. Training courses. Stress leave. Maternity/paternity leave. Pensions all that jazz a private sector / self employed type like me has never seen.

The NHS is a big institution here in England. It must be the most expensive area of government spending. We have more nurses than the U.S. has soldiers. Doctors and nurses are recruited from everywhere in the world. Many many of them are not home grown. Foreign accents are the norm. Something like 1 in every 50 people living in the U.K. work for the NHS.

The NHS is centrally governed from London. It suffers from a lot of poltical interference. Headline grabbing initiatives that come in even before the previous one had a chance to get implimented. It is also very wasteful.

To give you an example, about 7 years ago they built a new hospital wing. Filled it with all the equipment and the beds. Knocked down a block of nurses accomadation to fit it in and  a car park. They spent hundreds of millions of it. The next year, the government changed the budget to increase nurse and doctor wages. So they couldn't afford to staff it.

And so it lies empty. They can't even rent it out to the private sector because privatising the health service here is a politically contentious as nationalising it is in America. Now they are paying more for nurses external accomodation.

This kind of story is common of dinnertimes.

I'm not really into the NHS, I think it's a massive expense and I'd prefer to see the money go to the military. At the same time, my dad uses it every week and they are good to him and keeping him alive. My gran made it to 95. I hope my dad does.

The NHS has the lowest child mortality rate in the world and the highest life expectancy in the world. So it clearly works.

My dad has paid his taxes all his life, he has paid for his treatment in advance. They call the tax National insurance. But it's a Ponzi scheme. They didn't invest his insurance payments. It's funded out of direct taxation, not insurance. If they privatised it, all our lifetime of contributions wouldn't be available to us to invest elsewhere. 

So despite that I don't agree with the amount of money the NHS gets, despite that I think there are more worthy causes, despite that I think government interference is crippling it. My sister works there and my dad is a patient there. Out of self-intrest I can't vote against the NHS. No one in the country can.

Most people don't want to. I'm not even sure if I do.

Originally posted by baff

I'm from the UK.

I've never voted.

I've never used public health.

 

I consider myself to be right wing.

 

My sister works in the finance department at the largest hospital in the region. My cousins a doctor and my 85 year old dad is a regular patient who I take there once or twice a week. there's no waiting and has been no delays on any surgery, although I once had to wait 4 hours for him to get a bed.

On the NHS, usually he is in a ward with 2-6 others. Private he gets his own room.

 

I'm young enough and fit enough to have no health issues, so it isn't a big deal that I go private. I don't have any insurance scheme. When I was a child I used the national health service dentist, but he pulled out loads of my teeth and loads more of my sisters.I remember him now with his feet right up on the chair by my head, pulling. He got the right one on his fourth time. The same one I had been pointing at all along.  Since then I have gone private.

I like private, the premises are swankier and the nurses stick their breasts in my face when they brush my teeth more. Excellent service, value for money. Also, I can and have easily changed my doctor when I didn't like him. My dental bills are about 50% more than the ones I used to see advertised in the U.S during the nineties.

 

My dad used to go private, but these days he is in so often, with cancer, heart problems, kidney problems and all the other stuff 85 year olds get, I doubt he feels he can afford to. If indeed he could even get treated as fast in a private hospital. They might have the specialists, but I doubt they have the equipment.

The service is good. The hospital is clean. People there are really friendly and nurses float my boat. Without them, he would have died of cancer the other year, they seem to know what they are doing.

My cousin's a doctor at the biggest hospital in London. His American wife is pregnant and wanted to go private. He wouldn't stand for it. Give him NHS or give him a dead wife and child. She was none to pleased at the idea.

 

My sister often talks about her job over diner. It's massively political.

It's a good job and it pays well. Since it's a government job it pays well and has all the perks and legal trimmings you would expect. Paid holiday, sick pay. Flexi hours. Training courses. Stress leave. Maternity/paternity leave. Pensions all that jazz a private sector / self employed type like me has never seen.

The NHS is a big institution here in England. It must be the most expensive area of government spending. We have more nurses than the U.S. has soldiers. Doctors and nurses are recruited from everywhere in the world. Many many of them are not home grown. Foreign accents are the norm. Something like 1 in every 50 people living in the U.K. work for the NHS.

 

The NHS is centrally governed from London. It suffers from a lot of poltcal interference. Headline grabing initiatives that come in even before the previous one had a chance to get implimented. It is also very wasteful.

To give you an example, about 7 years ago they built a new hospital wing. Filled it with all the equipment and the beds. Knocked down a block of nurses accomadation to fit it in and  a car park. They spent hundreds of millions of it. The next year, the government changed the budget to increase nurse and doctor wages. So they couldn't afford to staff it.

And so it lies empty. They can't even rent it out to the private sector. Now they are paying more for nurses external accomodation.

 

This kind of story is common of dinnertimes.

 

I'm not really into the NHS, I think it's a massive expense and I'd prefer to see the money go to the military. At the same time, my dad uses it every week and they are good to him and keeping him alive. My gran made it to 95. I hope my dad does.

The NHS has the lowest child mortality rate in the world and the highest life expectancy in the world. So it clearly works.

My dad has paid his taxes all his life, he has paid for his treatment in advance. They call the tax National insurance.

 

So despite that I don't agree with the amount of money the NHS gets, despite that I think there are more worthy causes, despite that I think government interference is crippling it. My sister works there and my dad is a patient there. Out of self-intrest I can't vote against the NHS. No one in the country can.

Most people don't want to. I'm not even sure if I do.

  What he said ^.  I use the NHS more often the Baff so I guess I have more experience with it, generally the NHS is fine, I once broke my leg and the NHS was effective at helping me out and seeing to me being treated. I 've had no bad experiences with it. However I have cousin who works for the NHS and is a doctor and he often says that the NHS is not good enough and could easily collapse but he thinks this system is better than most as he has travelled to several countries. For a doctor it might not be that good but as a patient, it's good.

I have no party affiliation but I lean towards the right, despite this I think the NHS is good for what it is, even our right wingers have learned to accept it because of its popularity in the UK.

Originally posted by efefia

Well, first off it's not "free", National Insurance is the largest contributor which sets the average earner back somewhere around £60 per month and prescription medicine has to be purchased.

For minor treatments, expect waiting times to be crazy but for everything else, it works perfectly. Having had 3 close family members with serious illness' over recent years I can only have praise for the NHS and the work they do.

Ok ,I didnt know that.I thought it was free or at least mixed in with your taxes

Originally posted by murdera2k6

Originally posted by baff

I'm from the UK.

I've never voted.

I've never used public health.

 

I consider myself to be right wing.

 

My sister works in the finance department at the largest hospital in the region. My cousins a doctor and my 85 year old dad is a regular patient who I take there once or twice a week. there's no waiting and has been no delays on any surgery, although I once had to wait 4 hours for him to get a bed.

On the NHS, usually he is in a ward with 2-6 others. Private he gets his own room.

 

I'm young enough and fit enough to have no health issues, so it isn't a big deal that I go private. I don't have any insurance scheme. When I was a child I used the national health service dentist, but he pulled out loads of my teeth and loads more of my sisters.I remember him now with his feet right up on the chair by my head, pulling. He got the right one on his fourth time. The same one I had been pointing at all along.  Since then I have gone private.

I like private, the premises are swankier and the nurses stick their breasts in my face when they brush my teeth more. Excellent service, value for money. Also, I can and have easily changed my doctor when I didn't like him. My dental bills are about 50% more than the ones I used to see advertised in the U.S during the nineties.

 

My dad used to go private, but these days he is in so often, with cancer, heart problems, kidney problems and all the other stuff 85 year olds get, I doubt he feels he can afford to. If indeed he could even get treated as fast in a private hospital. They might have the specialists, but I doubt they have the equipment.

The service is good. The hospital is clean. People there are really friendly and nurses float my boat. Without them, he would have died of cancer the other year, they seem to know what they are doing.

My cousin's a doctor at the biggest hospital in London. His American wife is pregnant and wanted to go private. He wouldn't stand for it. Give him NHS or give him a dead wife and child. She was none to pleased at the idea.

 

My sister often talks about her job over diner. It's massively political.

It's a good job and it pays well. Since it's a government job it pays well and has all the perks and legal trimmings you would expect. Paid holiday, sick pay. Flexi hours. Training courses. Stress leave. Maternity/paternity leave. Pensions all that jazz a private sector / self employed type like me has never seen.

The NHS is a big institution here in England. It must be the most expensive area of government spending. We have more nurses than the U.S. has soldiers. Doctors and nurses are recruited from everywhere in the world. Many many of them are not home grown. Foreign accents are the norm. Something like 1 in every 50 people living in the U.K. work for the NHS.

 

The NHS is centrally governed from London. It suffers from a lot of poltcal interference. Headline grabing initiatives that come in even before the previous one had a chance to get implimented. It is also very wasteful.

To give you an example, about 7 years ago they built a new hospital wing. Filled it with all the equipment and the beds. Knocked down a block of nurses accomadation to fit it in and  a car park. They spent hundreds of millions of it. The next year, the government changed the budget to increase nurse and doctor wages. So they couldn't afford to staff it.

And so it lies empty. They can't even rent it out to the private sector. Now they are paying more for nurses external accomodation.

 

This kind of story is common of dinnertimes.

 

I'm not really into the NHS, I think it's a massive expense and I'd prefer to see the money go to the military. At the same time, my dad uses it every week and they are good to him and keeping him alive. My gran made it to 95. I hope my dad does.

The NHS has the lowest child mortality rate in the world and the highest life expectancy in the world. So it clearly works.

My dad has paid his taxes all his life, he has paid for his treatment in advance. They call the tax National insurance.

 

So despite that I don't agree with the amount of money the NHS gets, despite that I think there are more worthy causes, despite that I think government interference is crippling it. My sister works there and my dad is a patient there. Out of self-intrest I can't vote against the NHS. No one in the country can.

Most people don't want to. I'm not even sure if I do.

  What he said ^.  I use the NHS more often the Baff so I guess I have more experience with it, generally the NHS is fine, I once broke my leg and the NHS was effective at helping me out and seeing to me being treated. I 've had no bad experiences with it. However I have cousin who works for the NHS and is a doctor and he often says that the NHS is not good enough and could easily collapse but he thinks this system is better than most as he has travelled to several countries. For a doctor it might not be that good but as a patient, it's good.

I have no party affiliation but I lean towards the right, despite this I think the NHS is good for what it is, even our right wingers have learned to accept it because of its popularity in the UK.

Ok,Some good responses ,Thx for the replies.
 

---

Originally posted by LeKinK
I'll pass this time. A few of us already said how it work  nice for us in here (Canada) but we just get targeted by the right wing right after.. 
 
" THOSES ARE PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AND CANNOT BE USED TO DESCRIB YOUR SYSTEM AT LARGE "
And then they point out there own personal situation where a Canadian go to the US for treatment  and somehow they are right and not us...  it's the fricking same kind of argument and it's only ok for them to use it...

---

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

Did you also save the lives of the people who couldn't afford healthcare?

This is an interview on NPR (I can here some screaming "liberal bias" already) with Lord Ara Darzi who is a surgeon and was the Minister of theHealth in the UK. He admits that there are problems in the National Health System but not even close to the magnitude brought up by some conservative lawmakers and groups here in the U.S. You can listen to the pod cast here

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

The defenders of Britain's system include Lord Ara Darzi. He is a prominent surgeon who just finished his stint as a minister in Britain's Department of Health. He admits British health care is imperfect. Still, he says, it's a fairly straightforward system.

Dr. LORD ARA DARZI (British Government Advisor, Britain's National Health Service): Every patient, or a member of public in England, are registered with a primary care physician. You go and see your general practitioner. Your general practitioner will refer you on and the cost of that referral and the payment of that hospital is made by this local insurer, which we call primary care trust. The payment is made by a single payer.

INSKEEP: Single payer, the government, end of story.

Dr. DARZI: Yeah.

INSKEEP: There had been some reforms in the National Health Service in recent years, and that makes me wonder what it is that went wrong that needed reforming.

Dr. DARZI: Well, the National Health Service has not just come through a reform. It's come through a complete transformation over the last eight years. We did have patients on waiting lists for their operations for a long period of time. We certainly did have shortages of doctors or nurses. And the expenditure in health, back in the year 2000 was 37 billion pounds, roughly $70 billion.

INSKEEP: Mm-hmm.

Dr. DARZI: The expenditure now is 110 billion pounds. That's near enough $200 billion. The NHS in itself has grown by about a third, employing new doctors, new nurses, new hospitals. So, a lot has changed and a lot of the stories that I certainly heard over the last couple of weeks, which is being debated, are the stories of the past.

INSKEEP: So, you got to the year 2000 and found that the government-run system had just not kept up with the needs of the British public. The spending was not sufficient, the number of doctors available were not sufficient, and the wait for particular kinds of treatment was just out of control. That's what was happening and that's what you tried to fix, fundamentally.

Lord DARZI: That's correct. You know, the NHS, the last decade is a different NHS from the NHS the decade before.

INSKEEP: Well, let me get to a specific example that's been cited this month here in the United States. Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican who is deeply involved in health care negotiations, raised concerns about moving the United States anywhere near what Britain has because of an example of a fellow senator of his. Let's listen:

Senator CHARLES GRASSLEY (Republican, Iowa): I've been told that the brain tumor that Senator Kennedy has, because he's 77 years old, would not be treated the way it's treated in the United States. In other words, they say, well, he doesn't have long to live, even if he'd live another four or five years. They'd say, well, we've got to spend the money on people that have more, can contribute more to the economy.

INSKEEP: Okay. Does the British system make that kind of distinction? Here's an older fellow, you've got this treatment that you could give him but it wouldn't add massively to his life expectancy, so we'll deny that. Do you do that?

Lord DARZI: Well, I'm sorry to say that's the most ludicrous thing I've heard. I've heard that written down but I've never heard it in real speech. And the answer to that is absolutely no.

INSKEEP: So, Grassley's comment is based on nothing, so far as you can say?

Lord DARZI: Absolutely - not just false, these are lies which have been used to set fear against reform.

INSKEEP: Ted Kennedy goes to Britain, he's a British citizen, he's going to get full treatment and that treatment is going to be fully paid for. Is that what you're saying?

Lord DARZI: Absolutely, irrespective of the tumor type as well.

INSKEEP: Let me play another clip, if I might. This comes from an ad that's been running nationwide in the United States, an ad campaign produced by a conservative political action group called The Club for Growth. And they show on the screen, an image of an old man who is mourning in a hospital bed.

(Soundbite of ad)

Unidentified Man: Twenty-two thousand, seven hundred fifty dollars: in England, government health officials decided that's how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialized system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck. That's wrong for America.

INSKEEP: That's an ad from the Club for Growth. And just to be clear: is there a meter by the bed, in effect, in Britain, and if health care gets too expensive for an individual, you cut him off?

Lord DARZI: Absolutely not. Again, it's the most ludicrous thing I've heard. And I'm just giving an example: the life expectancy in the U.K. is actually longer than it is in the U.S.

INSKEEP: But if somebody gets into a particularly difficult medical situation and treatment is particularly expensive, do you ever get to a circumstance where you say, we're just not going to pay for that treatment anymore?

Lord DARZI: Absolutely not. I'm not standing up here and saying we have the best health care system that you should copy. That's not the intentions of me getting on the radio to you. It's - I'm making clear that what you're hearing is not just false and distasteful, it's just far what I expected, someone in these senior political roles, to be disseminating fear against the system.

INSKEEP: Lord Darzi, thanks very much.

Lord DARZI: My pleasure.

INSKEEP: Lord Ara Darzi is a former minister in Britain's Department of Health and a surgeon at St. Mary's Hospital in London.

Edit:

Also let me add my experience living in Ireland and a majority of my family living in Northern Ireland (part of the UK). I lived in the Republic of Ireland for two years and the few times that I had to use the National Health I never had to wait for weeks or months to see a doctor. My parents are in their 80's, living in N. Ireland (UK) and use the NHS. My mother had to wait for a procedure once only because it was a new procedure and there were only a handful of doctors who knew how to do it. My father had to get part of his hip replaced a few years ago. He not only got it replaced without any delay or problem of any kind, the NHS even offered to install handles in the bathroom and around the house for him to hold onto if he thought he needed them. They also offered to have nurse come and help him dress or get around the house if he needed one and to help my mother with the cooking and daily chores. My sister lives there as well as my nephew and his family, and a slew of cousins and none of them can imagine NOT having the NHS.

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run Canadian healthcare really is

Originally posted by HYPERI0N

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run Canadian healthcare really is

 

And....??

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

Yup, always the same argument...

My brother has had 2 operations to surgically remove some of his small intestine.

My father was treated for lung cancer.

My mother had appendicitis surgery and a pacemaker installed.

My grandmother broke her hip and wrist.

Both my sister and my sister in law had 2 babies each.

There was no wait time for any of the above and each cost nothing out of our pockets.

The government deducts about 1/5th of my income as tax and with my income I am considered middle class.  Also, I live in a major metropolitan area.

I think it's important to note that the UK and Canadian systems being mentioned here are not in comparison with the proposed Health Care Reform in the US. In fact, the proposed reform has very few similarities to the other systems, the only glaringly obvious similarity is that there will be a government operated plan, but it is not free. It's only stated that it will be "cheaper and cost-effective" as an alternative option to private insurance.

There are no guarantees in the entire bill that costs associated with US health care will go down, nor does it say that "every citizen will get health care", these are merely bad assumptions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not "all for private insurance", in fact I want to see private insurance companies held over the fire. However, this whole health care reform argument has had a lot of "look at the other countries who use it" statements, but it doesn't have much resemblance to those systems.

I too am a Brit.

The NHS is absolutely free.  While it is true that while you work you do pay National Insurance which pays for the NHS, it is NOT a requirement for you to have paid ANY NI in your life to entitle you to NHS treatment.  So therefore, the NHS is free for some people.  Severely disabled people who have never worked recieve the most NHS treatment and have never paid a penny towards.  The severely physically and mentally handicapped are treated for free, for life.

The NHS is not perfect, it is underfunded and over subscribed.  The British population has faced a growth boom for the past decade and it has taken its toll on the NHS, which faced 20 years of under funding under a Conservative Government and despite the current Labour Governments best efforts, in the face of population growth it has been a slow improvement.

However, ANY person in this country with ANY illness or medical problem regardless of what it is will get care and attention without any questions asked.  I have NEVER provided my National Insurance Number to get treatment or any other documentation.  Although admittedly that was probably done behind closed doors based on my name and birthday.  I have NEVER had to speak to anyone who deals with accounts when requiring treatment.  I have simply turned up and been treated.

There are problems, my father very recently came very close to dying due to very poor care he received at a local hospital, and yes it made me very angry.  He ended up 9 days in a diabetic Coma because some stupid nurses screwed up his insulin, the Doctors put him on a Do Not Resucitate notice and told me he wouldn't live a week.  He was home 12 days later and its been months and he is much better.  So yes, they screw up....but for every screw up, there is a tale of real care and attention or almost medical miracles where they have brought people back from the dead by being good at their jobs.

There is a thing, and this I am reluctant to talk about because i am afraid conservatives will pounce upon it, called NICE.  NICE is a group that basically decides whether the NHS will pay for a particular medice.  So if you have a rare condition and a new pill is created that 'may' extend your life for a short period of time, but is prohibitively expensive...and some of these treatments can run to thousands of pounds a week, it will not be a Doctor that decides whether that treatment is available, it will be NICE who will decide whether the NHS will pay for that medication.    This has to be this way.  There is a finite amount of money and spending thousands of pounds to extend the life of one person cannot be justified at the expense of others and that may be cruel to the person and their family but it has to be that way.

I would quickly, though I am sure this part will be ignored by those that wish to use that information, point out that HMO's are exactly the same.  One of the things that HMO's will often NOT pay for is experimental treatment.  Which is basically what NICE is doing, looking at new experimental drug treatments and deciding whether they are value for money.  Its a tough decision and I don't envy those people making them.

I have taken two of my visiting friends to the NHS for treatment, one from the U.s. one from NZ and also quite a few exchange students.

They have always been treated on the spot and for free and without question.

These days when I take my dad in they check his identity by asking him his name address and post code.

Originally posted by baff

I have taken two of my visiting friends to the NHS for treatment, one from the U.s. one from NZ and also quite a few exchange students.

They have always been treated on the spot and for free and without question.

 

 

These days when I take my dad in they check his identity by asking him his name address and post code.

Here in Canada we have our healtcare I.D. card and when we need treatment we bring that card and all our info are on it.

Originally posted by LeKinK

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

 

Yup, always the same argument...

To start off, I'm a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Followed by I find Enigmas experience weird, because I've never heard of anything like that in a long time.
More often I hear about my grandparents friends and family friends who just want to die and the government keeps trying to help them.

I had a family friend go to a clinic with a sore rib, and within a week she was getting cancer treatment and its now a month later and shes never felt better in her life, they removed a lung and she didn't have to pay a penny.

My Mother had a hyper-thyroid, which left her at risk from getting a heart attack by simply walking up the stairs if it flared up really bad.
The week she went over the threshold for treatment she went to see a specialist in Vancouver (one of the best in north america for thyroid issues)
It took about a week to get the appointment and go down there, then it was a little under a week to get her chemical therapy to kill just enough of her thyroid to settle it down.

Were now 3 weeks later, it looks like the dosage was spot on; she payed 0 dollars out of pocket and were happy.

I could go on all day. Social Healthcare works in Canada atleast.
You will hear examples of people who were on long waiting lists, but again from my experience (my mother works in the healthcare industry) the vast majority of these people (infact everyone shes ever dealt with) were on the waiting list when they needed minor/cosmetic surgeries.

People with minor muscle aches will be bumped for a patient with cancer or crippling pain/injuries.

There is no cut-off age, or social requirement for healthcare. You can be 1 or 100 and still get the same package so I'm really confused about what you were dealing with Enigma. Maybe I'm mis-understanding the circumstances you were dealing with.

Originally posted by Munki

Originally posted by LeKinK

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

 

Yup, always the same argument...

To start off, I'm a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Followed by I find Enigmas experience weird, because I've never heard of anything like that in a long time.
More often I hear about my grandparents friends and family friends who just want to die and the government keeps trying to help them.

I had a family friend go to a clinic with a sore rib, and within a week she was getting cancer treatment and its now a month later and shes never felt better in her life, they removed a lung and she didn't have to pay a penny.

My Mother had a hyper-thyroid, which left her at risk from getting a heart attack by simply walking up the stairs if it flared up really bad.
The week she went over the threshold for treatment she went to see a specialist in Vancouver (one of the best in north america for thyroid issues)
It took about a week to get the appointment and go down there, then it was a little under a week to get her chemical therapy to kill just enough of her thyroid to settle it down.

Were now 3 weeks later, it looks like the dosage was spot on; she payed 0 dollars out of pocket and were happy.

I could go on all day. Social Healthcare works in Canada atleast.
You will hear examples of people who were on long waiting lists, but again from my experience (my mother works in the healthcare industry) the vast majority of these people (infact everyone shes ever dealt with) were on the waiting list when they needed minor/cosmetic surgeries.

People with minor muscle aches will be bumped for a patient with cancer or crippling pain/injuries.

There is no cut-off age, or social requirement for healthcare. You can be 1 or 100 and still get the same package so I'm really confused about what you were dealing with Enigma. Maybe I'm mis-understanding the circumstances you were dealing with.

 

Indeed! If old people were left to die or some tossed away for being unimportant it would be all over the news. Yet we never heard anything about that and we live in Canada..  So either Enigma is full of $hit and only try to make us look bad or else he have acces to some underground news no one can see or hear. (exept him)

Originally posted by LeKinK

Originally posted by Munki

Originally posted by LeKinK

Originally posted by Enigma

I do not live in Canada but when I was a Priest in Philadelphia we had a ministry for those in Canada who could not get healthcare because they were deem "too old" "not as important" etc etc

We saved a lot of lives of people who would have died if they waited for their turn in the Canadian Medical System. I'm glad to have been part of that awesome ministry and it made me realize how bad government run healthcare really is

 

Yup, always the same argument...

To start off, I'm a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Followed by I find Enigmas experience weird, because I've never heard of anything like that in a long time.
More often I hear about my grandparents friends and family friends who just want to die and the government keeps trying to help them.

I had a family friend go to a clinic with a sore rib, and within a week she was getting cancer treatment and its now a month later and shes never felt better in her life, they removed a lung and she didn't have to pay a penny.

My Mother had a hyper-thyroid, which left her at risk from getting a heart attack by simply walking up the stairs if it flared up really bad.
The week she went over the threshold for treatment she went to see a specialist in Vancouver (one of the best in north america for thyroid issues)
It took about a week to get the appointment and go down there, then it was a little under a week to get her chemical therapy to kill just enough of her thyroid to settle it down.

Were now 3 weeks later, it looks like the dosage was spot on; she payed 0 dollars out of pocket and were happy.

I could go on all day. Social Healthcare works in Canada atleast.
You will hear examples of people who were on long waiting lists, but again from my experience (my mother works in the healthcare industry) the vast majority of these people (infact everyone shes ever dealt with) were on the waiting list when they needed minor/cosmetic surgeries.

People with minor muscle aches will be bumped for a patient with cancer or crippling pain/injuries.

There is no cut-off age, or social requirement for healthcare. You can be 1 or 100 and still get the same package so I'm really confused about what you were dealing with Enigma. Maybe I'm mis-understanding the circumstances you were dealing with.

Indeed! If old people were left to die or some tossed away for being unimportant it's would be all over the news. Yet we never heard anything about that and we live in Canada..  So either Enigma is full of $hit and only try to make us look bad or else he have acces to some underground news no one can see or hear. (exept him)

That or somebody let him in on the ceremonial putting of old people on the ice flows.

 Edit: As a side note, Elderly is the highest voting population in Canada, the government bends over backwards for those old farts.

People should keep in mind that what works in other countries with a fraction of our population may not work here.  U.S. is the 3rd in the world in terms of population, behind China and India.  Things are a lot harder to handle when you have so many more people.  The doctor to patient ratio is a big factor in universal healthcare, so is cost and quality of care.   It isn't as easy to say, oh look at UK, look at Canada, or France, or Finland, etc.. and say well it's working out great over there.

Each countries are different in terms of how things operate, so you got to be careful when talking about how certain things work well in another country.  Population plays a big role in the healthcare debate.

Originally posted by Mardy

People should keep in mind that what works in other countries with a fraction of our population may not work here.  U.S. is the 3rd in the world in terms of population, behind China and India.  Things are a lot harder to handle when you have so many more people.  The doctor to patient ratio is a big factor in universal healthcare, so is cost and quality of care.   It isn't as easy to say, oh look at UK, look at Canada, or France, or Finland, etc.. and say well it's working out great over there.

 

Each countries are different in terms of how things operate, so you got to be careful when talking about how certain things work well in another country.  Population plays a big role in the healthcare debate.

Yea but we love talking about our country... You guys don't understand; we talk about you guys all the time.. Don't rob us of our spotlight :(

Originally posted by baff

They have always been treated on the spot and for free and without question.

But it's not free, their care was paid for by your fellow Brits who are heavily taxed.