23 replies to this topic

[Orangejuice]

Our media has shown American anger towards the NHS. The anger is sourced with Obama's healthcare reforms.

Now I'm not a Labour supporter, but the NHS was the one good thing the party has ever done for us.
(I'm sure the idea would have come about sooner or later anyway.) The fact it has been with us for
60 years shows it's a good system. Sure it's not perfect, but nothing is. I'm lucky to only have had minor injuries.
But in America our family would have had to fork out loads of money for even them. (We're not rich.)
One person on the radio yesterday said he banged his head on excuse to get drunk there and had to fork out over £500 for a 9
mile ambulance trip and then over £800 for the care. That is more than scandlous!
But then I don't care if your healthcare is reformed or not. All I know is, I'm better of with my NHS!
So leave us out of it!!!!!

[Funky Cold Adina]

Most of the people I know would love to have something like NHS here. But we're not everyone.

[Orangejuice]

It could be our media, they're the worst in the world. They only showed one different view, and that was indifferent.

[The One]

i highly doubt you will find a conservative IRBer among us. most people don't understand that there really isnt that much rationing in the canadian and british systems, and that most people there are happy with it.

It seems like so many of us are against it. But really, its just a few, and they are spreading outright lies to get the less educated and/or easily misinformed to speak out violently against it. Seeing this is the only way to "break" the president. And they can be quoted in saying that. You see, they lie to americans talking about death panels (which is really end of life counseling, informing people about how to write a living will, their options etc. ). They also say this health care plan is a single payer system that will eliminate private health insurance... which its no where close, and a single payer system hasnt even been proposed.

Its just right wing propaganda. and it REALLY is propaganda.

My favorite argument against it is having a government bureaucrat between me and my health care. As opposed to having an insurance company bureaucrat between me in my health care who is looking for a way NOT to pay for my bills.


It would be nice to have a hot blooded health care debate on IRB. Sadly, we ran off all the conservatives years ago.

[Sandy is my wizard]

Yeh we chased them off good!

We have free healthcare in NZ, its awesome. I don't see why any body bothers with travel insurance when they come here.

[sassmore4u]

I think idealistically a NHS would be a great thing to have, i just don't want to pay the taxes for it on top of everything else i have to pay taxes for

[The One]

sassmore4u, on 16 August 2009 - 09:06 PM, said:

I think idealistically a NHS would be a great thing to have, i just don't want to pay the taxes for it on top of everything else i have to pay taxes for

What if it were cheaper than regular health insurance, and you were guaranteed coverage? And that coverage was better than private insurance. That's what people fail to consider. Yes, you will pay taxes on it. But you also wont be paying for health insurance. It pretty much off sets itself.

Taxes are the lowest they have EVER been, which is why i laugh when people say... I want the America I grew up with. You know, me too. Even with all this spending, we wouldnt be in so much of a deficit. Everyone needs to remember, that several hundred billion dollars of deficit came from the Bush administration tax cuts. Tax and spend is one thing. Cut taxes and spend is a whole other. We started out with a SURPLUS. Where were the republican tea party people then?

Oh yes, telling us we were un American for questioning the president.

[Orangejuice]

It seams as I said, that our media is making the molehill into the mountain.

Lougan, on 16 August 2009 - 06:06 PM, said:

i highly doubt you will find a conservative IRBer among us.

Umm... *points to myself*

[sassmore4u]

Lougan, on 16 August 2009 - 11:13 PM, said:

What if it were cheaper than regular health insurance, and you were guaranteed coverage? And that coverage was better than private insurance. That's what people fail to consider. Yes, you will pay taxes on it. But you also wont be paying for health insurance. It pretty much off sets itself.

well, hypothetically i'm sure the coverage from the NHS will be better than some of the private insurance options out there, but i doubt it will be the top-of-the-line option that covers EVERYTHING necessary...
and what about the people who decide to go with the private health insurance instead, won't they still be having to pay the taxes for the national health plan that they chose not to go with because it doesn't cover what they need?

[The One]

sassmore4u, on 17 August 2009 - 04:19 PM, said:

well, hypothetically i'm sure the coverage from the NHS will be better than some of the private insurance options out there, but i doubt it will be the top-of-the-line option that covers EVERYTHING necessary...
and what about the people who decide to go with the private health insurance instead, won't they still be having to pay the taxes for the national health plan that they chose not to go with because it doesn't cover what they need?

Thats the thing, since these proposals aren't a single payer system, people can choose what health care they want. The point of the "public option" was to give people who can't afford insurance or can't get covered with insurance (be it pre-existing conditions or failure to qualify for god knows what reason), the ability to get at least relatively good coverage. Yes, there would be some taxation, but only on those making over 250,000 dollars a year. And they would hardly noticed the tax, which would be pretty miniscule (probably 1-2%). There are some proposals that charge employers who opt out of giving their employee's insurance.

Keep in mind, we all are already paying for people who don't have insurance though our own health care bills. For those that are uninsured, they tend to wait till a problem becomes life threatening before they do anything about it (which in some cases is too late). Its a known fact that preventative care, is much cheaper than catastrophic care. Most of those people rack up bills in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, which they certainly have no way to pay for. This is one factor that really drives up health care, because the health care providers (needing to make a profit) raise the prices for all of us to offset that.

If everyone is insured and can pay, the idea is to...

a) Bring down the cost of health care (by making sure everyone can pay their bills)
Bring down the cost of insurance through competition (because there are only 3 health insurance providers Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna, and UnitedHealth)

There is way more to the reform, the public option was just one piece of the pie. They also want to provide more effective treatment through preventative care and make advancements in science and technology probably. I can honestly say, and I've been putting alot of research into this... most of what Rush, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin are saying are outright lies. They hear one thing... like voluntary end-of-life consultation and call it a "death panel".

Most of what I've been reading comes from:
http://politifact.com/
http://www.factcheck.org/

They are great websites

[Sandy is my wizard]

I have health insurance even though we have a publicly funded healthcare system, its more to make sure that you don't have to wait for too long to get into surgery if you got stuck on a public waiting list.

Some of the waiting list for some proceedures can be quite long.

[Zach]

What the hell is NHS?

[Sandy is my wizard]

Nude Helecopter Skiers

[The One]

National Health System

[Orangejuice]

sassmore4u, on 17 August 2009 - 04:19 PM, said:

and what about the people who decide to go with the private health insurance instead, won't they still be having to pay the taxes for the national health plan that they chose not to go with because it doesn't cover what they need?

Well, yes. Here we have an option, NHS or Private. If you choose private you still may need the NHS.
If you get run over you'll need an ambulance. Guess what. There are no private ambulances. And the ambulance will take you to a NHS hospital. The private choice is only for treatments. It has no emergency care.

Lougan, on 17 August 2009 - 10:43 PM, said:

National Health System

Service.

[The One]

All I can say is... I badly cut my elbow last year about this time. It happened later at night, when the doctors office was closed. So I had to go to the ER. There I saw a Nurse Practitioner, who told me my elbow would need to be Dermabonded (glued back together). Now, I hesitated at this saying that since its on my joint, that would be a bad place to glue, and that I would rather have stitches, which are way cheaper btw.

Well she Dermabonded me and sent me on my way.

13 hours later, I was in Belmont's Clinic, the dermabond had torn open... as I expected.

The nurse couldnt fix it, so they just used some steri-strips to keep it closed (these are like temp stitches to keep wounds closed). They advised me to see my doctor if the strips don't hold, which she doubted the would.

So as you guessed it, they didnt hold. Not only that, it had gotten infected. So off to the doctor I went the next day.

So, a Physcian's Assistant at my doctor's office had a look at it. He ended up having to dermabond it again since stitches would have worsened the infection. Then he prescribed me some antibiotics to kill the infection.


In the end...

ER Bill: $600 after insurance
ER Doctor (that I didnt see): $250 after insurance
ER Nurse Practitioner: $200 after insurance
Doctors Bill: $125 after insurance
Antibiotics: $30 after insurance

Belmont didn't charge me.

Total Price: $1250 out of pocket and I didn't EVER see a REAL doctor.

Did I mention I have a $500 deductable? Shouldn't have had to pay it, but the insurance company didn't have time to process it all. Still haven't heard back from them for my reimbursement...


People say that our health insurance is the best in the world? BULLSHIT. Why should I have to pay for a mistake made by an ER Nurse Practitioner who was in too much of a hurry to give me stitches? Our health system is a joke. It took me 5 months to pay it all off and now I have a rather hideous looking scar on my elbow. What would have happened if my injury had been more serious? Could I have afforded that? It really makes you think doesn't it?

[Sandy is my wizard]

Probably shouldn't have cut your elbow then

[Orangejuice]

Dr Largo would have cut the arm off for only $300.

[Sandy is my wizard]

I would have probably fainted half way through, or more likely before I began

[Orangejuice]

I don't believe it.