What can you tell us Yanks about Healthcare in the UK

There's something not right about grown women who wear their hair in pigtails.

Occupation Hair Model/Literary Critic

The expert's view is always worth hearing.

but seriously, i love the NHS, haven't found long waits, good treatment when I need it, even just for minor things, all options explained, not really anything bad to say.

My 2 year old son had a health problem. His Mother took him to the doctors/hospital and they rushed him through on the urgent list. And gave him an appointment date 4 weeks later. Thankfully it didn't turn out to be anything serious.

If I was back in Amsterdam he would've been seen that very day.

Fuck the NHS, I'm saving up for private medical for him.

If I was back in Amsterdam...........

But you're not Archie are you? You're here. And by the sounds of it, the original exploratory diagnosis was that there was nothing severe enough to need emergency treatment. And we may conclude that they were correct. They make mistakes, but they also get things right. On that occasion, they appear to have been on the money.

Fuck the NHS.......

Professor Stephen Hawking disagrees with you, and that tone, most vehemently. And though I am nobody, so do I.

If i was in the USA I couldn't have afforded to have him treated at all as I haven't saved up yet.

fixed

I just can't understand fiscal conservatism and private healthcare:

"For profit healthcare"
"Free healthcare for all"

That anyone would choose the former of those options is utterly beyond me. All this talk of "death panels" and "government sponsored euthanasia" is total, mind boggling bullshit.

My next door neighbour, a retired and relatively poor man of advanced years who emigrated here from the tiny island of Grenada in the 50s, died last week of Asbestosis having suvived for nearly a year longer than expected thanks to the extensive and continued support of the Primary and Secondary care teams that operate in Wandsworth.

He had a bed in ICU after he was first diagnosed until he was stabilised, then he was moved to a full time care home for months, and finally back to his family home for his last few weeks of his life where he had a full time carer (despite his wife and daughter living in the house), oxygen tanks, ample medication and an ambulance to transport him door to door whenever he needed to go into hospital.

The man worked for a large portion of his life doing manual labour in dreadful conditions - evidently surrounded by asbestos.

I doubt there is an insurance company in the world that would have underwritten his healthcare past the age of 50 given these facts. And if there is, there is not a chance that a hard working but ultimately unskilled labourer would have been able to keep up the monthly installments once he'd reached that point in life where one settles down to 'enjoy' one's retirement, assuming he wanted to continue to eat food, heat and power his house and pay the water rates.

The people who would have stamped red ink all over his application papers are the closet thing the western world have to a 'death panel'. (Besides, of course, those US judges and Jurors who see fit to kindly to carry out god's work all too regularly).

On another note, this slipped under the radar a few days back, and is the very thing I was intending to do my final uneccesarily large post on.

Missed appointments cost huge amounts of money and are why waiting lists are so long for in-demand areas. Fact.

If people actually bothered to write down their appointment times and turn up, waiting times would go down, bureacracy would shrink (I have this week alone sent over 15 Did Not Attend letters to patients at my practice telling them to get in touch if they want to 'rebook' their hospital appointment) and we'd all be a lot happier.

And no, the fact that the appointment is 8 weeks in the future is not an excuse to forget. We're all going to remember to vote in the general election even though the date is currently set at "meh... sometime in 2010".

We're all going to remember to vote in the general election even though the date is currently set at "meh... sometime in 2010".

if only....
good post though.

I had cancer last year, and whilst I've not got the back room insight of Hladik, I have nothing but support for the NHS. I was treated reasonably quickly, professionally, in nice hospitals and for free. They have been flexible with my treatment when I wanted to move to Manchester and given me counselling, grants and help when I really really needed it. Even after spending a very long time in and out of hospital, the only problem I have ever had has been with the food (disgusting, predictably).

To see what is a saintly, kind and caring institution without discrimination on race, wealth or any other lines so badly attacked in the US media makes me honestly upset. I support the NHS wholeheartedly and believe it to be without doubt the best healthcare concept any country could wish to adopt.

To see what is a saintly, kind and caring institution without discrimination on race, wealth or any other lines so badly attacked in the US media makes me honestly upset. I support the NHS wholeheartedly and believe it to be without doubt the best healthcare concept any country could wish to adopt.

+1, but its not just the media, its delusional politicians (tautology?) and frantic, hysterical public masses (again?).

I don't think that the public will be anything other than hysterical when it comes to their own health & healthcare systems, especially when growing up in England many people, (until recently) myself included see free healthcare as a right. Science and Healthcare in the media is oddly represented, that's why people like Dr. Ben Goldacre et al are priceless. It shows a suprising amount of common sense, however, when so many people are supporting the NHS in this debate, and using things like the Welovethenhs hashtag on twitter.

Politicians are a different matter entirely. I haven't really developed a well thought out opinion on the role of party politics in national healthcare, but I am sure that MEP Daniel Hannan should not have voiced his opinions on the NHS so publicly in America. I would be all for getting him the sack, but thats a knee-jerk reaction, and I'd like some time to consider it and watching the news coverage & political condemnation before making my judgement.

A friend of mine in America told me this sentence which sound pretty scary;

"profit-driven healthcare is just another way of imposing the death penalty on the poor".

Whilst yes, that is correct, it seems to imply a malicious extermination project by proxy, which is hardly true (I hope).

but I am sure that MEP Daniel Hannan should not have voiced his opinions on the NHS so publicly in America.

If he truly believes the words he is professing, so be it. Let him speak them. He is doing himself a disservice in the eyes of the vast majority of British electorate... and who are we to stop him?

I reckon he was being lined up for some promotion or other within the party after that absurdly self indulgent speech to the European Parliament a few months back, but this latest outburst has stopped that political momentum dead.

He has shown himself for what he is: a power and attention loving wingnut who values profit and privilege over equality, much like every other Fox News 'journalist' and 'contributor'. Let's hope a few more prominent members of the conservative party follow suit.* We might just keep a semblance of sanity in power come June 2010.

There is no need to 'fire' these people - that is what democracy is for no?

*Kudos to Cameron for stepping up and dismissing this man, however. I was impressed by that. And decidedly unimpressed with Labour immediately attempting to tar the rest of the conservative party with the Hannan brush. Fools.

I
Decidedly unimpressed with Labour immediately attempting to tar the rest of the conservative party with the Hannan brush. Fools.

+1
I did think that was a little bit of a stretch. Not really fair game, in my mind. I think it was a bit of a scramble by Labour trying to get anything they can over the Tories. This wasn't a good way to do it though, very transparent.

Whilst yes, that is correct, it seems to imply a malicious extermination project by proxy, which is hardly true (I hope).

Well, I think one of the biggest crimes you can commit in the USA is to be poor. There is a general disdain for the poor, and a feeling that people who are poor are poor because they either don't work as hard as they could or for some other reason (basically, they 'choose' to be poor). This is a widely accepted belief. I don't know WHY it is, but I wonder if it may, in small part, come from the so-called 'Protestant work ethic' of our founders (the puritans and others).

.

Whilst yes, that is correct, it seems to imply a malicious extermination project by proxy, which is hardly true (I hope).

Roman gonna have a field day about that!
*
"The American government is trying to exterminated the poor in certain area so the NWO can able to control the masses easily"*

My next door neighbour, a retired and relatively poor man of advanced years who emigrated here from the tiny island of Grenada in the 50s.

Grenada'a not that tiny. I'm from there, and there's 100,000 of us, which, is millions.

EDIT: Sad story though, but again another reason why I become pretty het up, when the NHS is disparaged.

I find that vinyl lacks the crispness of digital.

You shouldn't believe what those hawking digital tell you.

Well, I think one of the biggest crimes you can commit in the USA is to be poor. There is a general disdain for the poor, and a feeling that people who are poor are poor because they either don't work as hard as they could or for some other reason (basically, they 'choose' to be poor). This is a widely accepted belief. I don't know WHY it is, but I wonder if it may, in small part, come from the so-called 'Protestant work ethic' of our founders (the puritans and others).

I suspect that it will have a lot to do with the conceptions of 'freedom' that abound. Surely in a 'free' country, the only way in which you could possibly be poor is if you chose 'freely' to be poor? There's an interesting, possibly not very well-realised, mechanism of inference here.

From one of the town-hall health-plan meetings.

YouTube - Barney Frank Confronts Woman At Townhall Comparing Obama To Hitler

Barney would fit right in here. Think he rides fixed?

Barney Frank; you, my friend, are a fucking WINNER.

Thanks for that Plurabelle, I was hoping it would be nice.
Infact, I'm going to watch it again.

that was top! is he sure he is a republican?

Barney would fit right in here. Think he rides fixed?

Cervelo R3 SL or nothing, my guess.

Oh, He's a democrat.
I think the REP. stands for representative and the little (D) at the bottom shows his stance.

Edit: After reading his Wiki, the guy is a DUDE. He's a gay rights and pro-choice activist and is really really pro Freedom-of-Speech. He's been incumbent since '89 and supports a 25% cut in American Military Spending. He's not pro-legalisation but pro-not-arresting-people-for-having-some-dope, which is pretty out there in America.

He gets my Political Dude Seal of Approval.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Frank