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I want some honest opinions about national health care...

post #1 of 15
7/7/07 at 1:30pm
Thread Starter 
... from people who live in a country where a national health care system is in effect. Every time I talk about national health care, no matter which side the person I'm talking to falls in, they tell me the same thing: "Go talk to anyone in Canada or the UK." The conservatives say "They'll tell you that it's a big mess, that you have to wait 6 months to see a doctor, and that you can't get treated if the government deems it 'elective'." The liberals say "They'll tell you that they love it, and that they can't imagine living without it."

So I thought I'd ask some people who actually live there. I can hear "facts" and "opinions" colored from both sides, but I thought I'd see what people actually think. I'd imagine that since CHUD is a fairly liberal board I'll get more liberal answers, but please, be honest. I figured this is the best place to talk to people in countries with national health care, so I'd like to hear positives and negatives from people actually living in these systems.

Oh, and FYI I'm all for it here in the US. I have decent health care, but I figure I'd pay about the same amount in taxes for nationalized health care as I'm currently paying in premiums, and the benefit would be greater for all involved. I'm mainly asking to have a rebuttal for when someone tells me to "Talk to anyone in one of those countries". Anyone care to enlighten me?
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post #2 of 15
7/7/07 at 1:55pm
We get pretty much all prescription for under £10, and some of the fastest emergency healthcare available. Both my grandfathers have had their lives saved on multiple occasions by fast-acting NHS ambulance crews, and both have experienced top-notch care during the subsequent hospital stays. The waiting lists for operations can be long, but if you can afford it you can always go private. That's the beauty of it - if you want to go the route of the U.S., the option is there. If not, there's government-sponsored operations. For those that can't afford it in America, that's not even a possibility, waiting lists or no.
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post #3 of 15
7/7/07 at 2:03pm
The NHS (United Kingdom Healthcare Service) is the third biggest employer in the World. The entire issue of understaffing, apocalyptic waiting times is largely a myth. Generally speaking if you fall and break your leg and go to the A and E in a large metropolitan hospital you can expect to wait between 2 and 4 hours to see a doctor who will try and get you treated and sent home ASAP.

The largest problem with the NHS is at a management level more than anything, the NHS is a top heavy organisation and it's only really started to become staff focused in the past few years.
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post #4 of 15
7/7/07 at 2:09pm
Slightly off-topic: thinking back to the shitpile that the NHS was before Labour got into power really highlights how laughable all those "Tony Blair did jack shit during his tenure!" columns really are.
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post #5 of 15
7/7/07 at 2:17pm
I think his micro-managing of the NHS into smaller and smaller PCTs really helped to be honest. At one time the NHS was being run as one overarching organisation, having the power be brought down to county/city level with a dozen regulatory bodies overseeing them really helped in streamlining service. I am kind of impartial though, due to the fact they pay my wages.

Also: League Tables are the best thing ever in terms of motivating directors/managers to do actually do something. You'd be surprised how much power a number can hold
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post #6 of 15
7/7/07 at 3:19pm
Canada here...

Love our health care system... Yes there are waiting periods that can last for months for stuff like a wonky knee, but you get fast and adequate treatment in emergency situations.

Unfortunately, the U.S. will never get a system like this since the insurance and pharmaceutical companies will never let you have one. I can see Canada losing it one day: it's a matter of time before a conservative government or these aforementioned companies biggen bull shitting the population about the cost being too great, etc... European countries, especially France, would fight more to keep it. They are less sheep-like than North Americans, I hate to say.
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post #7 of 15
7/7/07 at 3:27pm
I can't imagine not having free health care.I've only had to go to the hospital once and had to wait about an hour.I didn't mind since I wasn't on deaths door.Last month my dad fell and hit his head.The paramedics where at my house in under 5 minutes.I was a little freaked out, but I didn't for a minute have to worry about if he would be admitted to the hospital because he didn't have insurance.I was worried about his health and not about anything else.I'm glad I live in a country where I need not worry about if I can afford an operation or a treatment for an illness.

On the other hand we don't have the same thing in Canada that the UK does when it come to prescriptions.I spend about $70 a month on pills.There are a lot of things in Canada that you still have to pay for, but most of the big things are covered.There are problems with the system but not so many that I would want it to under go any drastic change.
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post #8 of 15
7/7/07 at 4:33pm
I lived in Britain until I emigrated; I also have been Type 1 diabetic since the age of 6.

In Britain, I received all my prescriptions for free; the only arbiter of what was or was not appropriate for medical care was my doctor. There was no insurance company dictating how much insulin or blood testing strips I could have each month.

The NHS is not flawless, and some of the rumors of wait times are true. But I think Ian hit the nail on the head. Nationalised health care, supplemenmted with private insurance where possible is a great model
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post #9 of 15
7/7/07 at 5:32pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rumteldat
There are a lot of things in Canada that you still have to pay for, but most of the big things are covered.There are problems with the system but not so many that I would want it to under go any drastic change.
I'd pretty much say the same for Estonia. The biggest problem here is the employee shortage and those pesky Norwegians aren't helping by stealing our nurses with their offers of massive salaries.
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post #10 of 15
7/7/07 at 5:50pm
I had to have my appendix taken out in November and i really can't fault the service I got. I walked in at 8 in the morning and straight through into A & E, no waiting at all. I was put on a ward and then at 3 o'clock the next morning I was in surgery. I left 3 days later having had all the morphine I could and minus one organ.

This is the only thing I've been hospitalised for as an adult and I can't imagine it any other way really.
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post #11 of 15
7/7/07 at 7:34pm
It's a mess but a mess that won't let you go bankrupt when faced with a life-threatening illness or pay a fortune to fix your teeth or pay for going to the hospital after a health scare.

And speaking of the NHS, I spent four years in the UK as a student. I didn't have to pay any medical bills during my time there, whether I needed to have a tooth pulled out or had to go to the hospital to get some flu medicine.
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post #12 of 15
7/7/07 at 8:34pm
It's a good system, though you have to be persistent with your doctors. When I was on campus in the US I got about 3 blood tests for every sniffle with the student health people. In the UK they'll ask a few questions, then prescribe something and see how it goes. You have to keep going back until they get the diagnosis right.

I wouldn't claim "Tony Blair did jack shit during his tenure", he funded the NHS, fixed the economy and helped bring peace to Northern Ireland.

But "Tony Blair is a lying sack of shit" is pretty much on target when it comes to Iraq. A political genius sure, but a scumbag all the same.
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post #13 of 15
7/7/07 at 8:38pm
I'm Canadian. I hear stories about huge waiting times, but they tend to be from the new breed of Conservatives who seem to want to push for privatized care, so there's an agenda there. Yes, we have the same conservative/liberal/private/public debate up here, it's just that here the Conservatives are pushing from the outside rather than supporting the status quo.

It's been a while since myself or anyone I know had to get an operation, so I guess I can't provide a firsthand account of this kind of stuff. But obviously there's more to health care than operations.
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post #14 of 15
7/7/07 at 10:25pm
I'm from Canada, and there are some huge wait times. But not for important things. If you are 80 years old, and you can't get a hip transplant in a month, to be honest I don't think it's a big deal. But if you need serious medical help it's there.
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post #15 of 15
7/8/07 at 12:13am
Just to chime in some more from Canuckistan ...

My lil' family here has two kids under 10, two adults, two seniors around 70 and one more just turning 95. I've had plenty of exposure to health care in two provinces: BC and Alberta.

First off -- don't discount how valuable not (initially) worrying about money in an emergency/acute situation can be. Allowing yourself to only focus on the medical (and family/social) situation at hand is one of the great benefits of a universal system.

While BC and Alberta both possess governments with a ideological bent towards privitisation, neither is foolish enough to try and radically head that way while anyone is watching. Sneaking in private clinics and outsourcing non-essential services (and tearing up labour contracts once in a while) seems to the current limit that the people will overlook.

On the private side, though, my family is also involved with dentistry. For the practitioner (the dentist), not being under the thumb of a government plan has the usual balance of thrills as a "pure" entrepeneur.
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