You are reading a single comment by @Elguapo and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Elguapo
I'm from the US and I have been living here for the last 5 years. As most Americans who cant afford insurance I have had many financial nightmares with the US health system. I once went in to the ER because of what turned out to be vertigo (inner ear) I waited for hours, finally saw a doctor who did nothing but ask me some questions and move my head around, no meds, nothing, he told me to go home and it would clear up on it's own (it did) I received a bill in the mail for $800! for what?
My mother had a spinal procedure recently that went very wrong (long story) up and she now has partial and permanent paralysis in both her legs, and the parts of her legs that aren't paralyzed are in constant pain. She's 69 years old and on Medicaid. Even on Medicaid she was given a limited amount of free visits to a physio for continued care and rehabilitation. After those were up, she had to find a way to pay for private insurance in order to continue being cared for, meds, etc. That would never happen in the UK with the NHS. If that happened here she would continue to be cared for as long as she needed it.
Also, The NHS is not free. We all pay loads of taxes in order to benefit from the NHS. The big glaring difference is that, the NHS is not a for profit business as is a gigantic chunk of the US system, Insurance, drug companies, doctors and on and on. So if you have money in the US, you get the best care in the world, but if you are poor or struggling you have one hell of a time trying to afford to care for you family and have insurance at the same time.
*"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life , Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness....."If they can afford it"
*
*"Give me your tired, your poor,
*The NHS is definitely an imperfect system and needs to be fixed desperately. But the haves and have nots have an equal opportunity to health care here. No one will ever have to sell there home or lose everything because of medical debt here! There are people all over the US who have to choose whether they eat or send their kids to the doctor, peoples lives are routienly ruined because they became ill and couldn't afford to pay the bills. That is not right. I dont care how much money the United States spends on health care, they are spending the US taxpayers money wrongly!