As the healthcare debate picks up pace, I find myself being asked with increasing regularity what I think of Britain’s healthcare system. Six months ago, I’d have jumped into the answer with gusto, but these days… I don’t know, I am just so fatigued by all the fear-mongering and hysteria, the ignorance and the downright idiocy of the current debate that I can hardly summon the energy to add my voice to the cacophony.
But the other night when a friend of my mother’s emailed me and asked that now-familiar question — what was my experience and what did I think of British health care? — and I was surprised to discover that, once the initial weariness had worn off, I found myself turning her question over and over in my mind, composing my answer. When I sat down last night and started my reply, the words fell out me, my fingers tapping rapidly at the keyboard and my mind so engrossed in the assignment that I was stunned when I finally looked at the clock: it was 2.30 in the morning. I had been so consumed because what I had to say had been bursting to come out, an outraged truth that was tired of being bottled-up and was begging to be told.
When I lived in the UK, I railed against the NHS (the National Health Service). I cursed every delay, every perceived inconvenience, every way it differed from the care I had received in the US. But I moved to the UK only a few months after graduating from university and, until then, I had been covered on my parents’ very generous insurance so I had experienced American healthcare only as a dependent. I was judging my British experience from a lofty and privileged position of someone who’d always had gold-plated insurance. And I was naive, because I’d never had to pay for it, never had to worry it wouldn’t be there, never really had to deal with the paperwork. I never really understood what I was comparing the NHS to at all.
I also realise with hindsight that a lot of what I held against the NHS had nothing to do with the system itself and actually were issues that could happen in any system. I blamed the whole system when the loo in my local doctor’s office or hospital wasn’t clean enough. I blamed the whole system when the only space I could find at the hospital carpark was miles away in the very furthest corner. I blamed the whole system when the doctors’ receptionist was grumpy or I didn’t much like my doctor’s manner (or his diagnosis). But the truth was that I believed in the healthcare system I had grown up in and I didn’t like the idea of socialised medicine — I didn’t like socialised anything — so I saw problems with it where-ever I chose to look. And I held onto that belief right up until I arrived back in the United States, and discovered that grumpy receptionists and dirty hospital bathrooms and annoying carparks can happen in any system — because they have nothing to do with the system itself. They’re management issues, human nature issues, and they happen everywhere. And a lot of the fear that Americans have about change in their healthcare actually center around these kind of issues that have nothing to do with the system itself, be it socialised or for-profit.
So my return to the US and my sudden immersion in the American healthcare system was a rude awakening for me and it made me look at both systems a little more realistically. There are great things about healthcare in the US — great things — and I truly do believe that the quality of the care here is second to none. But there are great things to be said about Britain’s system as well and the trouble is that, at present, far too few people are saying those great things and far too many here in the US are beginning to believe utterly ridiculous things about the NHS. Let me play a small part in putting that right by outlining my experience of the British healthcare system.
- First, I’ll start by pointing out that the NHS is truly one of the most socialist — almost Soviet — healthcare models that a country could possible choose. Unlike the health systems in France, Germany, and most of the rest of the developed world, it is totally government-run, almost totally centrally-controlled, and supported entirely through taxation. It is mammoth — the single largest employer in Europe, which is incredible when you realise it serves a small country with only 60million people. And with that kind of size come huge problems — consultation times are too short and it takes too long to get test results, amongst other things. It is not a perfect system by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s important to realise that when I talk about my experience, I am talking about the kind of system that truly is the very far extreme of what the nay-sayers are claiming will be the end result of public health provision in the US. The British system is the very stuff of their nightmares and yet, the truth is, it’s nothing like what they imagine.
- My healthcare in the UK was never dictated by a bureaucrat. Decisions were made by me and my doctor alone, and whatever we decided was the right course of action was the course that was taken. The scope of care available to me was far, far wider than what is covered even by the ‘very good’ insurance policies I’ve had here in the US. There were no limits on the number of times I could see my doctor, or the number of tests/procedures/consultations/etc that I could have in a year (or month or lifetime…) Whatever was deemed medically necessary by my doctor was covered — period. In fact, I’ve experienced a lot more limitations on my care since I’ve moved back to the US — the most memorable of which was when I had to beg the insurance company to cover a single visit to a nutritionist when E2 was diagnosed with 12 food allergies and was severely underweight. That simply never would have happened in the UK — if she needed it (and she did), she’d have got it (as her sister did after being diagnosed with a single allergy). To illustrate the point further, when I gave birth to E1, I stayed in hospital for five days because she had problems with breastfeeding — and that was entirely my decision. I was free to leave hospital whenever I wanted, be that after one day or after a week, and I had the full support of the midwives to stay until they were sure we were breastfeeding properly and ready to leave — no administrator/bureaucrat/insurance company made that decision for me!
- There are delays — there are delays — but to be honest I have experienced delays just as bad here in the US. In the UK, I might have to wait weeks or months to see a specialist if my case was not urgent, and that was frustrating. Here in the US, when I was in excruciating pain last year (so bad that I lost control of my bodily functions when the pain hit), I was referred to a breast surgeon by the ER doctor (7 hour wait in ER) — but the trouble is that we had to call five medical centers before we could find a surgeon who could see me any sooner six weeks, and even then it was only because they had a surprise cancellation. And the last time I needed to take E2 to the allergist here in the US, the earliest they could fit me in was two months later. There are delays in both systems. And by contrast, you can get very speedy service in the US… and you can get it in the UK too. When I needed to see my GP in the UK, I rarely had to wait until even the next day. When I thought I’d found a lump in my breast, I saw the doctor the next day and was sent to a specialist within the week.
- I had my choice of doctors. My small rural town had two GP offices (a GP is a General Practitioner, a family doctor) with about 5 GPs in each office — I could choose either office and any GP in that office I chose. I could choose to go to the GPs office in a neighbouring town if I prefered (though some offices limit the regional area they’ll cover). I could change GPs at anytime for any reason, no questions asked. When I had my babies, I had my choice of any of the hospitals in the region, or a homebirth (the midwives in my area loved doing homebirths!). When my GP referred me to a specialist, he’d send me to whomever he thought best, but if I wanted someone or somewhere else, I could request that, no problem. And I always had the option of a second opinion, either through another NHS doctor or a private doctor.
- I never once received a bill in the UK. There are no copays, there are no deductibles, there is no such thing as max-out-of-pocket. I have an NHS card which I showed at my GP’s office when I registered, and from that point on, I never had to fill out any forms or show any ID ever again. In fact, I think I lost my NHS card years ago — I have no idea where it is. It doesn’t matter — I don’t need because I am covered for everything once I am registered with my GP. When I stepped on a piece of glass and sliced up my foot, I went up to the local hospital, was seen immediately (rural hospital on a Tuesday afternoon), they took note of my name and address, patched me up, and I went home — simple as that. No bills, no paperwork, no hassle. Yes, Brits pay to cover it in their taxes, but the cost spread across the entire country and so it isn’t nearly the burden that insurance is for Americans. In fact, Brits spend only 8.4% of GDP on healthcare, compared to the 16% of GDP spent by Americans and what they get back is a system beats the US on so many basic measures of healthcare results. This is good quality care.
- Brits believe that healthcare is a human right and are happy to have a system that covers everyone, all the time. They are HORRIFIED when they hear stories of Americans who have to hold fundraisers to pay for desperately-needed operations. It blows their minds that anyone goes bankrupt or loses their home because of medical bills. The idea that someone would lose their coverage because of a pre-existing condition or because they are so sick they can’t work is totally alien to them. These things simply do not happen in Britain.
- Even with a comprehensive healthcare system that is available to all and completely free (at the point of delivery) the UK still has a healthy private system running alongside the state system. There are numerous large private insurance companies providing private health insurance to those who’d like to have it (or whose companies want to offer it). There are private hospitals up and down the country. Most specialists practice both within the NHS and also privately (they split their weeks). You can pretty much get your healthcare however you’d like — on the NHS, through private insurance, or paid out of your own pocket. I hear people in the US saying that with in the British system, you can’t see anyone but your government-assigned doctor, but that is totally untrue. And you can chop and change your care as it fits your life — I’ve had my care for an medical issue start on the NHS, and then switched my care to my private insurance if it suited my needs better. I’ve had other medical issues that I stayed with the NHS for the whole way. And when my husband had an elective medical procedure done that was covered by neither the NHS nor insurance, we simply paid for it out of pocket. It’s a flexible system and the private sector has not been quashed by the fact that there is a comprehensive, free public system running alongside it.
- Because healthcare is not tied to employment, companies are free to focus on their core business and people are free to make career decisions (and life decisions) based on what is best for them instead of what preserves their healthcare. Brits never worry about keeping their healthcover — they never worry about pre-existing conditions; they never worry about continuity of care if they change jobs; they never get trapped into a bad-fit job because they have to keep their healthcover. They are much freer to be entreprenuers than Americans, because their only worry is whether their business will succeed, not how they’re going to provide healthcover for their families when they’re self-employed. Companies, particularly small companies, are free to focus on their core-business because they not burdened by the administration of healthcare for their employees — they never have to pay someone in HR to manage health benefits; they don’t have to juggle insurance companies and negotiate lower premiums; they don’t lose employees because their healthplan isn’t as good as some other company; they don’t see their bottom line rocked by a sudden rise in premiums. Decoupling healthcare from employment is hugely freeing to both individuals and employers, and can actually a very good thing for the economy at large.
- When things go wrong, the government answers to the people in a way that insurance companies never do. For example, there was a cancer drug called Herceptin which was not covered on the NHS because of the cost. A group (led by Ann Marie Rogers) began a campaign to change this, suing their local health trust, and gained huge public support. They ultimately won their case and got their local trust to offer the drug — but because of the political pressure this campaign had created, the government extended the drug to the entire country. Imagine trying to convince an American insurance company to cover some expensive drug that they don’t want to cover, and then having that decision convince every other insurance company to do the same. And again, when I moved to the UK fifteen years ago, wait times in the NHS were much worse than they are now — but the public got fed up with it, made their voices heard in the General Election, and the new administration made cleaning up the NHS one of their highest priorities.
- There is an emphasis on preventative care and the simplest way this happens is that people actually go to see their doctor when they are sick. Because there’s no cap on visits and no copay and everyone is covered, hardly anyone hesitates to go to the doctor when they need to, which gives them a chance to catch little issues before they become big issues and spot contagious diseases before they spread to the rest of the population. And here’s another way the focus is on prevention: when I had my babies, the midwives came to my house to check on us every day for the first 10 days after the baby was born, and then the Health Visitor (a community nurse) came to the house once a week for six weeks, and then I could go to her clinic (held once a week in town) for as long as I wanted after that with any concerns I might have (as well as being able to see a doctor — my choice). It’s all done to ensure the mother and baby are healthy and well, to support breastfeeding, and to catch problems as early as possible. I was utterly shocked when I found out that most new mums in the US are simply sent home with their babies, with no follow up in the first six weeks, and left to muddle through as best they can!
- None of this actually tells you anything. Isolated anecdotal stories (like these) don’t actually give anyone the information they need to decide the merits of one system over another. All it does is tell you whether my particular doctor was good or bad, whether the nurse I encountered was having a good day or a bad day, whether the receptionist liked her job or hated it. There are good stories and bad in both systems, and it just depends on who you talk to. It’s much like public schools. You could ask parents across the US to tell you what they think of their kid’s school and you’d get a whole spectrum of answers: some schools are good, some are bad, some districts are rich, some are poor, some teachers are passionate, some have lost the will to live. But none of these things tells you whether the overall concept of publicly-funded schools is a good or bad one. If you drew your conclusions based on a bunch of stories from a handful of people about their personal experiences, you’d only be getting part of the story. And it’s no different with the concept of public healthcare.
I can sum up my experience of the British and American healthcare systems in one simple sentence: given a choice between the two systems, I’d choose the NHS in a heartbeat. And though this is the experience of only one single person out of millions, unlike so much of the propaganda and hysteria surrounding the current healthcare debate, it is the absolute Gospel truth.
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Addendum: This is an incredibly important issue with a lot of misinformation flying about. If you have experience of both the US and UK healthcare systems, I invite you to please leave a comment here and let us all know what you think of both systems. This debate needs more voices of experience and a lot less uninformed fear.
Stumble it!
Potential and Expectations 
Kay, the NHS dental system was reformed to function more like the American health care system. As you noticed, this was not a success, it led to the American problem of people not getting treatment.
The reason people are critical of the US system is that it does not provide health care to all, its results are quite poor, and it costs twice as much as it should.
As for the US bearing research costs for the rest of the world, I am sure that is a comforting myth, but it is just a myth. Numbers do not bear it out:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1179763/
I’m an American expat in the UK (23 years).
I’ve had good dentists and bad dentists. There are idiots everywhere. That’s not the NHS’s fault.
However, at least UK dentists don’t spend every single visit trying to convince you your child needs braces. My mum spent the first 17 years of my life fending off my US dentist’s attempts to get braces on me and never, ever succumb, thank the gods.
My teeth are perfectly straight, I never needed them. They just wanted the money.
Utterly disgraceful.
I’ve got one for you. When I was a young teenager my dad took me to an off base dentist, dad was stationed at Alconbury the work was done in Huntington and you know my 2 bridges lasted 30 + years and then in the ninties my dentist said we need to replace them since they were so old. The weird thing is when he picked a color it was like an off white. I said hell no make them white and beautiful. My point is he has replaced those two darn bridges twice and has the gaull to tell me I need another one. $ 6000 with a $1000 to be paid by Blue Cross. No way! Come to find out he filled for bankruptcy and is looking for a job. Now how about this……the cost was 0 in England (UK). They put a plate in first and once the deformed teeth were pulled the bridges were put in. Now in America, my daughter, and I wasn’t thinking, she had knocked out one of her front teeth skating. You got it, he put this darn off white almost grey, we are talking an 18 year old at the time. I am so angry I want to slap him, but we know he is just setting up his next move….redo! Of course it cost a fortune, I understand business and see the set up. Anyway thanks UK you did a great job and I appreciate your medical work. I’m not British, just there as a visitor station in England. The American system sucks, has and always will, they have control of our medical needs. Think about it, we will pay for “part” of it! I think Americans are scared of change, we need to get out of the “medical for profit”. Doctors making a million dollars a year. Another dentist I know that lives in Texas makes 15 thousand every two weeks, are you kidding me? God forbid you lose your insurance coverage, they have this thing called Cobra and when you lose coverage they keep you covered but the payment is more than twice the cost of the policy you had with your job. Now when you are down and out are they really supposed to beat you in the head, well that’s what they do. I will leave it here, thanks for this information and all of the posts, they are wonderful. When I had surgery Blue Cross called me at home after the surgery and tells me they will cover my medical surgery. What about that? Go UK
You would be unlikely to hear criticism of the NHS from the vast majority of British people because, in all but a tiny number of cases, it looks after them very well. It treats three million people each week and, yes, there are a few horror stories – but no organisation is perfect. I was born into it, as were my wife and my children. Cost? Nothing. Both sets of our parents suffered lengthy declines in hospitals before they died, looked after impeccably by the NHS to the end. Cost? Nothing.
Three years ago, my wife developed leukaemia, from which she nearly died. After spending a month on an ITU at, in dollars, $4,000 a day, she then spent four months in hospital recovering, at daily cost of around $362 before being restored to full health. That’s roughly $164,000 in total for her treatment. Cost to our family? Nothing. I would be described as a blue-collar worker and pretty unlikely to be able to carry the health insurance that sort of bill would entail in America, so where would I find the money to pay it? The thought of some family going through the worry we did with the added burden of how we might be able to pay for it is terrible to contemplate.
Prescriptions for my children when they were growing up were free until they reached sixteen. So was any dental treatment. Prescriptions for myself now cost $77 a month – but instead I pay a single sum of $180, which covers me for any prescriptions I require for a full year. I’m 60 this year and prescriptions will become free for me. I pay for the NHS through deductions from my monthly salary. It’s not a lot of money. But it ensures that, in the event of a serious illness in my family, I won’t be left with a bill so crippling that my children will still be paying it after I’m dead.
As a disinterested onlooker from New Zealand*, can I sum up the debate?
If you’re a wealthy American with gold standard health insurance (mostly paid for by your employer), you’re experiencing the best system in the world.
If you’re an American with bog standard or no insurance, you’re living in a country capable of delivering the best health care in the world . . . but you’re denied access to it.
If you’re that wealthy American and suffer an ailment that requires an aspirin, a bandaid and a lie-down, you’re going to get every test and scan known to man before a final diagnosis is made.
If you’re the other American and you do suffer an ailment that needs every test and scan known to man then the first thing scanned will be your wallet.
Health care in the US must be the most inefficient allocation of resources in the history of mankind, narrowly heading off everything ever done by the UN.
If you’re a Brit, you’re in safe hands . . . pity about the bad teeth.
*I came across this blog while googling for that American congresswoman who claimed, in the early stages of the current US health debate, that if she’d been living in New Zealand when she had whatever ailed her she’d have died — the sort of gratuitous insult that sees American relations with the rest of the world a constant series of one step forward and one step back.
I was searching what americans think of the uk and britian and came across you site
First, this is a well written, unbias, well thoughtout and intresting article, so well done. I read every comment as i was so interested! I have heard many horror stories from us friends about bills and costs for things we take for granted, although they admit nhs is flawed in some areas, they generally say good things (some bad ofcourse hehe) and think its a remarkable and quality service.
I have a condition, lets not go into medical jargon hehe, but without the nhs i hate to vision how i’d be. I have bad allergies and don’t think i could step outside on a summer day as my hayfever is so bad alone, and i hate for my family to pay the cost for my inefficiencies. Its not right to refuse anyone when health is concerned, its not right to force people into things to fund their organization but i feel it is a right for healthcare, regradless of your income.
about dental, I was so depressed about my teeth when i was young, i didnt want to live, i felt ugly everyday, but every dentist and orthodentist was good and nice and i was treated free until i was 19, braces and everything. My teeth have since moved in some places where i didnt take the advice to wear a retainer but they are 1000x better now, I can smile once again and i do not feel the need to cover my mouth like im coughing burping or chewing food.
Healthcare, its a right not a priviledge!
This article makes me feel proud and glad i am british, thank you and well done
A very well written article that should be sent to the President on healthcare in America. I am British living in the USA with my husband who is American. He spent 20 years in the UK and had several health issues, all dealt with promptly by NHS. He turned 65 in UK and started claiming US Social Security (pension) but did not claim Medicare as he was covered by the NHS, but now we have moved to the USA he is being fined for not starting Medicare at 65, which now means we cannot afford to get cover for the gap. I also do not have any cover as I have high blood pressure (border-line) which is controlled with 2 tablets, but the insurance rockets with pre-existing conditions. The only people that I have heard complain about the NHS are those that know no difference, those that havent really had any dealings with it.
I see that this thread stopped rumbling along two years ago, but personal experience compels me to add my supports to the NHS. Some of the daft rumours I have seen even now simply blows my mind. Treatment not given to the elderly? Jesus, some people have watched Logan’s Run one too many times I think.
The simple fact of the matter is, free care is given to everyone, no matter what.
My mum is nearly 70 years old. She fell ill last year, with her face swelling up to twice its size. After an agonizing night in bed, we took her to the GP, who sent her to the local hospital the same day (actually the same morning). She was in that hospital for two months, coming close to death. After she developed Staphylcoccal Scalded Skin Syndrome, all of her hair and skin fell off due to painful blisters all over her body, hands, feet, face, the lot. She had 24 hour a day care on the specialist intensive care ward. They found she had a brain infection causing all of the problems and sent her to a hospital who had a brain surgeon to get her checked in case they needed to drill her skull to drain the fluid on her brain. In the end, they gave her a cocktail of drugs that over the course of three months, cleared the infection. Her skin grew back, as did her hair after 6 months. And the NHS even provided a free wig that looked like her real hair while she was bald. She is now mostly recovered, albeit with a slight weakening of her facial muscles on one side.
All of this treatment, and time, free. Think of it. All the drugs they gave, the time they spent, the bedspace used for over two months, the wig. All free. And all to someone approaching 70. Euthenasia my arse, stupid Republicans.
At the exact same time this was happening, my new born son stopped eating. When he did eat, he projectile vomited the whole lot up again. One night he was crying he was so hungry, so we called NHS 24 at 2am, they sent us to an emergency clinic at 4am, the emergency clinic suspected Pyloric Stenosis and sent us to the same hospital my mum was at, who confirmed the diagnosis the day after they ran tests. We were then sent to the Children’s Hospital at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where my son was given the necessary operation to allow him to ingest his food properly, and thus live. Problem solved, within a week, and again, for free.
So, my mum and son both saved for free. Socialist healthcare? Damn straight I support it.
I’d like to update my last comment – I believe that the NHS has declined in areas over the last couple of years.
Apart from my own more recent experiences, websites such as http://nationaldeathservice.blogspot.com/ list egregious errors for which no-one ever seems to be held accountable.
I now think that a health system similar to France’s or Germany’s would serve patients here better. Those systems seem to give the patient control over their treatment, rather than the stark options of private medical insurance or free at the point of use state provision.
[…] This American’s Experience of Britain’s Healthcare System is one person’s account of the US and UK healthcare systems (h/t Tuibguy). The author opens the door to a reasoned, evidence-based discussion of what health care should be like. The post contains no yelling, no hyperbolic disaster scenarios, no conspiracy theories. Even better, there are some really really well thought out comments. This is the conversation that the entire nation should be having. Some of the excellent points made by commenters: […]
Ok. One major flaw in these arguments that is simply not being brought up. How does the system in Britain get paid for? It is my understanding that the UK pays for education, health care, what not for its citizens, but is also accumulating a mass amount of debt and has riots now when the government can’t pay anymore. If I could live in a place where everyone got everything they needed then I would be in Heaven or a Dream, neither of which is in this life or reality.
Frank,
Britain’s healthcare system (the NHS) is paid through general taxation, in the same way that schools, roads, the police and army (etc) are paid for in both the US and the UK. The cost of that healthcare in the UK is about half of what it is in the US (8.4% of GDP in the UK vs 16% in the US) while, interestingly, the US government ultimately covers about half of its country’s healthcare costs (according to several sources including, most recently, Bruce Bartlett, senior policy advisor in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and staff member for Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul, in the New York Times http://is.gd/ezmuEt), bringing government spend by GDP to a rough par between the two countries. In other words, the (comprehensive) British healthcare system is paid for by its citizens through taxation to roughly the same extent that American citizens pay for (half their) healthcare through taxation.
The causes of the riots in London are the source of a lot of debate at the moment, but almost no serious commentator is attributing them to Britain’s healthcare system. If (and that’s a big if) they were caused by recent cuts in public spending, the cuts were primarily to other benefits, not to healthcare.
[…] “This American’s experience of Britain’s health-care system~,” is from Potential and Expectations (8/13/09). Diane calls it “an excellent and thorough post.” […]
I’m 16 years old and have lived in the UK all my life. I have visited the US but had not experienced the healthcare system there. When I was 11 and at school I was teased and bullied for having large ears that stick out (try not to laugh too hard). I visited my local family doctor with my parents and explained the situation to him. I was then referred to the local hospital about 5 mins drive away within a week. After a 1 month wait I had an operation on my ears and my childhood was enlightened! The whole op was free and my parents paid nothing. From reading the above posts I can imagine that this operation would not have been possible in the US due to high costs. I have nothing but praise for the NHS but understand it has problems which is most probably the case for the healthcare in the US and around the world.
In my British mind, health care is a fundamental human right and health care should therefore be socialised. The American system sounds appauling to us and, what with the NHS budget cuts, we’re kind of seeing a similar reaction to the one you guys had in the States – people pointing out all of the negatives of the American healthcare system and terrified that we’re heading towards a privatised system.
As a sidenote, if you weren’t happy with the NHS, you could have paid for private healthcare with a company such as Bupa. Nobody forced you to use the NHS.
I apologise. I should have read your whole article before getting defensive. It was actually a very well written and unbiased article. I’m just passionate about the basic human right of healthcare. I’ve heard Americans spout a lot of damn right moronic stuff about our ‘commie pinko’ healthcare system since Obama was elected and it’s gone from a slight irritation to infuriatingly insulting.
I love the NHS. Its not great. Nor the best in the world. But I like the fact taht everyone gets the best treatment for for free. That is not the case in reality due to the inverse care law – ie the best healthcare proffessionals go to the rich places where their services arent needed as much. But that happenes everywhere.
One thing i utterly hate is when NICE doesnt allow a drug on the NHS becuase people then have to pay thousands of pounds or rally the PCT for their lives. That sucks. Thoguh that doesnt happen often. As does the fact England tries to save money by giving more and more of aspects over to the private sector, like privately ran GP surgerys. Which will cost England more in the long term; they may not have the high startup costs, but they have to pay for the heathcare proffesionals time, building maintence AND THE PRIVATE COMPANIES PROFIT. FAIL. FOOLS.
The inconsistancies of how the postcode lottery (services are dictated by where you live) and of how each country runs its NHS suck too. ie NHS in Scotland is a lot better than the NHS in England – a lot more govt funded, free eye tests, free medicine etc. But the Scottish state of health is in a mess, so it does need more attention.
NB: I find the thought of the American health system horrible. When i watch CBS News at 3am to see people queuing around the block just to get some free heathcare. => SAD IN THE EXTREME but ive never personally experienced it.
Written by a UK Pharmacy Student about to fail his exams as he is reading this when he should be revising!
What Interesting reading the pro’s and con’s of both systems. But nobody ever said when they moved from the US to the UK that they got onto the NHS register straight away, although I think one person made some comment on that subject.
I have duel citizenship US/UK and I intend to marry an American and reside In the UK. My only concern that she has type 2 diabetes and on arrival In the UK I don’t know what to expect In the way of care, or prescriptions. I would love to get an answer on this issue. We are both over the age of 60.
John
Response to Danna
“So your son almost died because you were not tested for GBS, a test that is covered by insurance and practically mandatory at just about every practice in the US, but must be payed for privately in the UK? A simple swab and a round of penicillin could have saved him a lifetime of doctors care. Why is this test not a routine part of the NHS coverage? Apparently not EVERYTHING is covered by the NHS”
Just to clarify. Testing for Group B Haemolytic Streptococcus is entirely free if your General Practitioner decides it is worthwhile. There is no NHS restriction on testing. If it is up to the doctor to decide.
The reason why it is not undertaken is because UK doctors (myself included) don’t think it is worthwhile. The rationale is as follows:
a) 70% of sore throats have non-bacterial causes therefore penicillin is ineffective. Indeed the use of penicillin & 30% of sore throats are caused by group B haemolytic streptococcus
b) the evidence suggests that antibiotic treatment will reduce the duration of illness by about 24 hours (e.g. shortening illness from about 4 days without treatment, 3 days with treatment) and reduces the risk of getting rheumatic fever after throat infection by about 2/3. But this is
Don’t take my word for it, check the evidence: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD000023.pub3/abstract
c) Antibiotics have adverse effects (diarrhoea, allergic reactions in a small number of cases)
d) Rheumatic fever is very uncommon in the UK – about 1 in 100,000 persons get it per year. But sore throats are common. So it is likely that fewer than 1 in 10,000 sore throats are followed by Rheumatic fever. If we had 30,000 cases of sore throat and didn’t treat them we might get 3 cases of Rheumatic fever. If we treated all 30,000 cases with antibiotics we would get 1 case of Rh fever. So we treat 30,000 to prevent 2 cases. Given that maybe 5% would get side effects (diarrhoea) and 1 in 1000 an allergic reaction this stacks up as follows:
No treatment
3 x Rh fever
Treat all
1 x Rh fever
1,500 x diarrhoea
30 x allergic reactions
(Plus adding to bacterial resistance, plus patients tend to consult again with the same problem when it arises, so you are encouraging patient dependency)
Most UK doctors think that this is more harm than good.
Another small difference is that US physicians may be paid fee for service so they get paid more for doing tests, whereas UK general practitioners are paid by capitation, so they prefer not to encourage patients to consult or to do more tests than strictly necessary.
So this is a complicated question, but it does not have much bearing on the UK NHS versus US health care systems.
Thank you for your well-written and informed blog, which I just stumbled upon. As an American who is currently living in, and who has developed a chronic illness in, the UK, this is a topic that is very important to me. Especially as it is still being debated in the Supreme Court as I write this, some three years after your post. I would like to move back to the US, but I’m unsure if I can. And this is solely because of the way that healthcare is tied to jobs in the US and because of my ‘pre-existing’ condition that requires very expensive medication.
Oh, and I hope that it’s ok if I share this via Facebook. Yours is one of the best articles on this issue that I’ve found.
Absolutely! 😀 And thank you.
I live in Scotland and as such use the NHS. two years ago I was suffering a serious alcohol addiction and lost my job and apartment within 7 months, a year ago I was admitted to crosshouse hospital with the early effects of liver cirrhosis and received excellent medical assistance with both the illness and my alcoholism. I’m now in college and have a flat on the outskirts of Glasgow. Although the NHS is not perfect but I owe it my life and don’t have it in me to badmouth it. I applied for american basic insurance from two separate insurers while visiting family in Arizona and was turned down on both due my past alcoholism and (Now fully recovered) liver damage so I doubt I would have survived if I had lived in America instead of Britain.
It’s hard to come by well-informed people for this subject, but you seem like you know what you’re talking about! Thanks
You are so cool! I don’t think I have read a single thing like this before. So good to discover someone with a few genuine thoughts on this subject. Seriously.. many thanks for starting this up. This website is something that’s needed on the web, someone with a bit of originality!
Wow! What a fantastic blog! I can’t begin to thank you enough Strawberry. You know, a few years ago I had the opportunity to sit down with a friend of my cousins who was visiting the U.S. from England. I couldn’t help but to bring up the subject of Health Care to get his take on our differences. Of course He corroborated just about everything in this article. He’s such a great individual and I beleive in him 100%. There is no way he would lack honesty in what He shared with me.
At this point I have the absolute highest regard for the UK and it’s people. I only regret I weren’t born there instead of here in the U.S.
What scares me more than anything about the U.S. at this point is the mental evolvement that has taken place over the last 100 years. People have become absolutely oblivious to reality overall. Not all, but overall.
People do not think for themselves but rather follow in someone elses lead. There is a very large portion of the public that just repeat what their chosen sources say or believe like parrots, but are actually passionate enough about their baselss ideologies to fight to the death over the issues. There is such a lack of critical thinking and common sense portraying our character in absolute disarray.
Please do not see all Americans this way? I’d like to believe that there are many millions who still have a sense of their own person, character and reasoning. This may spell out why Barack Obama was elected as our Preesident?
We have become so absorbed in self adornment, selfsih and spiteful towards one another. There is no longer a sense of unity and looking out for one another as there used to be.
Those leaning left are often criticized and branded as useless, lazy entitlement suckers as parasites that will destroy our nation and freedoms. This of course coming from those that know nothing whatsoever about all the different forms of socialism and their meanings. Socialism is always referred to as just “Socialsm” and many if asked exactly what it means can’t give you a very good answer other than what they have heard or read about.
Most have never gone out of their way to truly educate themselves on any of the different forms of government and comapred them to ours. But they seem to think they know it all.
I could go on and on, but in a nut shell my main point is that I don’t think it is possible for enough Americans to ever wake up enough to see the benefits to look across the water, take into account your maturity as a nation compared to ours and realize you have evolved to where you are today through experience and history greatly exceeding that of what we have had.
Your position as a people is to be respected and I beleive you probably have about the best Health Care plan that can be implemented. I personally have been without Health Care for about 2-1/2/ years now. Our Family has run up a debt of over $10,000 that we cannot pay, I have a growth in my groin area that desperately needs attention and I cannot pay for it.
My feeling is that I will probably die due to lack of health care. There rae those that would scream “The law says you HAVE to be treated, who cares about the debt”
Those are those highly misinformed parrots speaking as the law only say’s here that the Emergency Room HAS to treat you no matter your ability to pay at the time.
IF I end up having testicular cancer, by the time I need the emergency room it will obviously be too late! THAT is our capitalism at its finest!
All I can hope for is that Mr. Obama is re-elcted and that the Democrats win back the House of Representatives and THEN MAYBE….MAYBE we’ll get a chance for a public option and the England modeled health care system he intended upon.
From most Americans!!!!!! HELP….WE ARE IN TROUBLE!!!!!!
A fascinating blog. I have lived in the UK now for over 30 years and developed a serious chronic condition foe which I received excellent care from the NHS with no worry about cost to me and my family at all. The point you made about the link between jobs and health coverage is really important. I subsequently was able to leave my previous job and set up a business with no concerns about losing my health cover – something I just would not have been able to contemplate in the US. I now employ 10 people.
The NHS saved my life I had cancer when I was 13 and it relapsed when I was 15 it was a long slog and it must of cost the NHS 100’s of thousands in care cost to make me better. Thanks for the post it was a great read.
One other thing that may come as a surprise to people in the US is that being a UK citizen also covers me for free emergency care anywhere in the rest of Europe. I have an “e-1 11 European health card”, which can be obtained free of charge online or from any post office. I used my card in Italy following a serious fall, resulting in a compound fracture and four breaks. On entering the hospital I showed them my card and that was it. No paperwork, no forms, no payments, nothing. They just noted the number and that was it.
No one has brought up the issue of either health care system’s FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITY. Friendly nurses and free pills are great…but inner sustainability of a GIGANTIC system completely funded by TAXES (so sensitive to the situation of the economy) is a heavy issue.
Actually, I did touch on it a little. The UK spends about half of what the US spends on healthcare to achieve very similar outcomes. At the time I wrote this blog post, UK healthcare costs were approximately 8% of GDP vs 15% in the US. According to this article, the World Health Organisation now puts it at 9.6% vs 17.9% respectively, or $3480 per capita vs $8362. This article from Forbes examines it in more detail, as well as translating the data into a very useful graph to compare healthcare costs and results in various countries — well worth looking at.
Now as to the financial sustainability of this, according to The Economist (I don’t have the article handy at the moment, sorry), approximately half of all US healthcare costs are ultimately paid for by the government through various programmes (Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, state health programmes such as CHIP, etc). What that means is that the government is already paying as much for healthcare as other world governments are (including the UK), and then US citizens are paying that same amount again through either insurance or out-of-pocket expenses. So, if the question is financial sustainability, we have our answer: the UK model costs half what the US currently pays, and the US government is already paying that. Ergo, sustainability isn’t really the issue.
Tony UK
No job, no insurance. 2 heart attacks, 3 stents, and a pacemaker.
No charge. …………………..Priceless.
I am a US expat in London for 14 years so far.
Thank you for taking the time to write this.
With a few emergency trips to hospital for injuries and one breast lump scare, my experiences match yours. My husbands bicycle accident was a great example, there was a wait as it was a Friday night. But once he was seen the treatment was first rate and the month of physio after the break healed, was excellent.
I contracted a severe throat infection on a trip to the US and was still receiving bills a year later. When I lived in the US it was a constant worry when the company I worked for changed the insurance. And the advent of HMOs was then end of doctors autonomy in prescribing treatments.
Is the NHS perfect? Of course not. Are the taxes higher? Yes.
But I’m happy to pay them as it buys me a civil society to live in.
And THAT is worth it!
Interesting, I think there are a few things that have been overlooked. I will bring up two points, 1. Great Britain is a social (commonwealth) country that has foundations in supporting the general population by the Government. 2. America is a Republic (or at least it is supposed to be) and therefore is founded on People cannot rely on the government for anything other than the respect of their liberties and justice.
Now is the NHS a wonderful system, of course it is! It gives universal healthcare for its citizens and attempts to be both cost efficient and practice preventative care. Certainly this is a system that caters to the people a heck of a lot more than the American system does. The NHS also concentrates on cutting costs which ultimately means taxpayers can pay less in taxes for their healthcare needs. You can also opt to do private healthcare for things not covered by the NHS or simply for higher quality care. The NHS has completely eliminated the depression over healthcare costs, which is actually good for your health!
Yet, the NHS is not perfect. It is still a social system which is given to the people through the Government and whether you choose to use the NHS or not, you are required to pay for it. If anyone has been in the UK in the past 15 years or so, you would notice that a plethora of non-citizens and even European Union refugees if you will, do not work, and therefore do not pay for healthcare and yet, they receive free healthcare off the backs of those who have paid through taxes. This will ruin the NHS and make it unsustainable if measures to correct this are not taken. The work force in the UK has many more ‘temps’ than in the US, which means while people are not working (sometimes choosing not to because they get money for not working as well as free healthcare) then they would be ‘freeloading’ off the paying public as well. I almost wonder if this system has allowed unaccountable behaviour.
Now, before I delve into what is wrong with the American system, which there is too many to fit on a page, I will first line out why America should NOT adapt universal healthcare.
America is often affiliated as a democracy, and although it is, it is supposed to be a Republic (I encourage you to look up the difference if you do not know). This means that the government cannot hand-out rights, you have rights by simply being born a citizen. The only thing the government is supposed to do (almost a joke today) is protect citizen’s rights and keep out domestic and foreign threats to the well-being of the country. America is not a social system and trying to implement it could be disturbing to some ‘patriotic’, if you will, citizens. First of all, it is not the federal governments job to provide healthcare (which is a plus not a human right). Healthcare should be left up to the people and respectively their states. The states can tax and fund healthcare programs as the residents deem necessary. This will make the healthcare system more cost- effective, accountable and cater to the needs of that particular state. I mean come on let’s face it; Wyoming does not have the same needs as Massachusetts. Free healthcare for citizens- great, but let’s do it on a by-state basis please. Medicare and Medicaid are free health care for the elderly and the poor- I guess the hell with everyone else, that already exist.
Now, in the states, doctors practice defensive medicine in fear of lawsuits (gosh how American is that?) and they actually have incentives to inflate healthcare costs with unneeded tests in order to save their behinds in potential lawsuits. Also, insurance companies rule the healthcare sector and financially gain from denying benefits. The US should come up with a state-oriented or non-profit organization or some other more intelligent way than I can muster up to eradicate the broken, expensive and counterproductive system that is currently in store.
Is the NHS Bad? No, it is a social system and is not perfect, but it answers to the people and provides healthcare for those who pay and for those who don’t
Should the US have a universal healthcare system? No, for over 300,000,000 people (plus countless illegal immigrants) this would breed corruption (don’t you think the US has enough corruption?) and break-it-down to more people-accountable pieces.
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G’day all!
I’m coming into this discussion as a dual citizen, Australia and the UK.
I’ve not been to the USA, but I have online friends there.
One thing that annoys me about the USA and its healthcare is the pre-existing illness = no/expensive insurance thing…
How can any modern country allow such a thing! I have friends in Australia with Cystic Fibrosis. It’s genetic and terminal. There are treatments, but no cure. I’ve seen absolute horror stories about people in the USA with CF and their struggles to get cover. So many people with CF cannot function correctly/efficiently in the work place, many spend so much time in and out of hospital as a child (more often in than out) that their schooling is adversely affected. Yet in the USA they must work their limited years away to try to get enough insurance to cover medication and treatment to hopefully allow them a few more years. It’s almost like the USA is saying it’s their fault for being born with such a disease.
In Australia, my friends with CF who can work do work, and are covered by free healthcare. Those who cannot work do not have to worry. They are covered for healthcare. Also covered by disability pension, and they can enjoy their average 31 odd years of life. At most, they may have to pay part of their medications as prescriptions in Australia are only partially covered by the healthcare system. The same goes for the UK, except prescriptions for them are free.
Shouldn’t people like that be covered regardless? Do they not have just as much right to live as the rest of us, even if they are unable to perform to the same level?
On another note, comparing Australia to the UK. Both have free healthcare and I LOVE Australia. But, whilst our hospitals back home are more modern and such, they are also busier, and in my experience have a longer wait time. I also find it easier and often quicker to get an appointment with a GP here than back home (unless I went to a massive 24/7 surgery where they just rush patients through).
As for dentistry. In Australia I could not afford the dental work required. Free dental only applies to those on benefits, which has been reason for me to get myself fired previously. So that I could go get a tooth pulled for free etc. Even if you are on benefits, there’s often a 2 year wait for treatment, and if you need emergency treatment you’ve gotta rock up at 7am and wait in line to hopefully get served that day (still only available on benefits!). Here in the UK, I signed up with the local doctor, got an NHS number, rang a local dentist, made a checkup appointment early the next week for an NHS visit. They have 3 bands of payment, first band is checkups and cleaning of teeth and such, 2nd is fillings and extractions, 3rd is braces and plates and caps etc. They do all work in a continuous stream, so one visit after the other until its done. If you have to get work done in multiple bands, the cost of the previous band is deducted from the cost of the next band. I think the most I will end up paying for all the dentistry I need is $500 Australian. The quote I got at a private dentist in Australia for the same work was $15 000 Australian, and I had to pay $180 Aus to get the checkup to get the quote!!!)
Now, my dental issues are not related to poor dental hygiene, but rather to medication I had been taking for 15 years that I was not informed was damaging to teeth and also weakening to their structure. That, combined with dry mouth. I brushed 2 – 3 times daily, flossed (mostly) at least once a day, ate relatively healthy, etc. It bewilders me that a country that I was not even born in is willing to fix my teeth and remove my pain/embarrassment. I mean, sure I am a citizen but I really wish Australia would cover dental too.
It’s funny ya know, people always go on about Brits having bad teeth. But I know far more Australians and have seen far more Australians with bad teeth than I have ever seen of the Brits since I’ve been here. Dental hygiene is very important, good dental hygiene is directly related to longer life span, healthier body and mind etc.
Come on USA, Australia, and whatever other countries are not offering proper health care. The NHS may not be perfect, it may have a lot of old buildings and outdated procedures. But it’s a start, its constantly being improved, its efficient and it is a VERY good return for your money. Healthy people means happy people, happy people means more productive people, etc etc etc! If you want your countries to continue to prosper, look after your people FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!
The UK has very nearly won me over, I honestly would not have a problem raising my kids here, growing old here. At the very least, I know they’d be well cared for after i’m gone. =)
The NHS has its flaws as do many government run organisations but its merit lies in the fact that rich or poor you will receive the best possible care whatever your ailment. Britain has undergone many changes and the NHS has had to move forward with those. A child in Britain will never be asked where their insurance papers are when they have leukaemia and the parents will never have to make a choice of what to pay first, neither will an 80 year old man be unable to have heart surgery unless he can pay the bill. Britain is great for these small things.
The next time I read a blog, I hope that it won’t fail me just as much as this one. After all, I know it was my choice to read through, however I truly thought you would have something helpful to say. All I hear is a bunch of moaning about something that you could fix if you were not too busy looking for attention.
Because the admin of this site is working, no hesitation very shortly
it will be renowned, due to its quality contents.
I agree with another commenter who mentions that the quality of care provided by the NHS has been in steady decline since this article was written in 2009. An increasingly elderly population, high numbers of unemployed and a large influx of immigrants from eastern Europe who are not working yet still receiving free healthcare, are causing a large strain on the system, especially during these times of austerity measures. After living in Germany for a number of years I believe their healthcare system to be far superior to the NHS yet very similar to the American system of private health insurance, where the employer pays a portion of the insurance and the individual pays the rest with some co-payments for certain procedures. The difference is that no one may be uninsured and all employers must match the healthcare payments with their employees. The healthcare needs of the unemployed are looked after by the state run health insurance. Pretty much what Obama is trying to do in the US at the moment. However, the difference is that the healthcare insurers in Germany are very strictly regulated by the state. There are very clear sets of regulations as to how health insurers may operate and what they may charge and transparency is paramount. A situation of a person making cripling high insurance payments only to have medical insurers wriggle out of payment or refuse to authorize necessary procedures would be unthinkable in Germany. As well as a situation of your insurance not being accepted by a doctor’s practise or hospital is unheard of there. German hospitals are mostly state of the art and a joy to behold in comparison to NHS hospitals that are battling with budget cuts and demands for more efficient yet high standards of care. I do not think universal healthcare is the way forward and the NHS is buckling under the strain. I would welcome a German style system of health insurance and can’t understand why the USA cannot adopt this system and regulate their health insurers.
Hey, I would rather not have a cancerous tumor grow inside me to the point of being uncurable just cos I was afraid of medical bills – say what you want about the NHS at least nonodybis afraid of going broke and nobody lives in fear in England!! The NHS and Doctors in the UK are very very good Ive always been.treated, theUS system is so shitty that even my American wife prefwrs the UKs system, she is still in shock that its free and you dont get charged a fortune everytime – by freebi mean you dontbmiss it oit of your wages its just auto tax. I cant wait to get backbhome to the NHS
I am a Brit living in America now, and the healthcare system here to me is nothing short of shocking !! The doctors here in America are normally very good although one doctor did actually prescribe me a cocktail of drugs that my GP back home said could have nearly killed me and was not even the correct medication for my illness anyway! But apart from that the standard of doctors is very good vut everything else to me is just awful awful awful. If your rich then yoir pretty much fine but if your a normal joe like myself then your screwed in the ass. I get sick and i cant go to a doctor cos I cant afford ot or im scarwd how much medication is gonna cost! Common thats jist crazy. I dont even wanna talk about it, healthcareand veing fit and healthy is abasic human right period and it shouldnt cripple your bank account!!
NHS, Second to none! Great read!
Having suffered with asthma all my life, living in the uk has been great, i have check ups with an asthma nurse every 3-6months depending on the season and if i have been to see the GP about my asthma, all I pay for is £7.4×2 for my medication.. One is called sertide, now I forget what it is called in America,Which I have been told by a family member who works for CVS, that the same inhalur would cost nearly $400, and it’s costs the nhs £65 a time yet I only pay the base fee of £7.40.. Also I have got PVL which is a form of MRSA, I have had 4 operations, with full treatment of nurses coming to my house to change the packing of where they have cut the abscesses out. my father was an American and we have the chance to move back there, yet he wanted to stay here for medical reasons, and all this talk about GP’s, I have had 4 GP’s in my lifetime and all have offered me the best care to prevent my asthma, I was under a doctor in the hospital until I was 18, and I had open ward access, which meant if I was having an attack I went straight to the ward and not through the A&E (ER department!) Yes there have been times of waiting for Dentist, but I had my braces fitted and full treatment on the NHS, again one of my cousins had braces in America and the treatment cost was crazy.. The whole idea of the nhs is no one is left behind, no matter the job, if you need it you will get it.. I could go on and on, I have had to use the nhs for a number of reasons and everything has been there for me, and my friends too….
I came across your article by sheer chance. As an English women who works within a paediatric unit in the nhs this really lifted my spirits. Tohear you re experiences were so positive. So many people do not appreciate what we have here in the uk in comparison to other countries. Thank you so much
I’m an American living in the U.K., now with dual citizenship. A friend back in the US had cancer, and needed drastic, life-changing treatment. He had good insurance, but after dealing with co-pays and assorted other things that weren’t covered, he and his wife ended up losing their house. The U.S. system doesn’t look bad unless you don’t have insurance or have it and turn out to need it in some massive way. Then it looks different. I’m horrified by what the government’s doing to the NHS.
Thanks for writing this. My experience with the NHS has been mixed, but my experience with American health care has been mixed as well, and you don’t find people in the U.K. losing their houses because they had to cover the co-payments that come with a serious illness, and everyone is covered. If you lose your job, you’re still covered. .
It’s the push back her that i still cannot get my head around.
I have lived in the USA (California) now, have for 9+ years and as a Brit i can tell you, Healthcare in the USA is my biggest concern.
I have a 4 year old (born in 2009) and quite frankly if Obamacare (or to call it by it’s real name) the Affordable Healthcare Act, had not been implemented, or had failed to get through congress or been struck down by the SCOTUS i would have left.
My child Healthcare is far to important
As Brits we do not view healthcare as a commodity.
It is of corse, it has a limit on the resource that it can provide, and we do not view it as a cost, again of corse it is, but we do not pay when we use it (that may be the misunderstanding of the term free).
But i honestly believe the US doctor has in his mind when he treats you a though about how much he will make,
Unlike the UK system. The US system is based on treating people. That is how doctors get paid, so it is inconceivable for anybody to believe that is not considered by your (US) doctors when he sees you,
A doctors office here is a business first and foremost.
He has chosen it as his career and the system in the US allows for doctors to be massively in debt to become doctors and then massively profitable once they are certified.
However even knowing all this, i still, as stated in my first line, Cannot get my head around the idea that you ( and by you i mean Americans) would not want to put healthcare above profit.
You know that you are being over subscribed and treated if you have good Health Insurance (because that how your doctor gets paid) and under subscribed treated if you don’t.
And yet that idea that the US has the best Healthcare service in the world persist, I can tell you it does not.
Healthcare is not a car, a TV, or a shinny thing, it’s like air or water, for modern free society you must have it.
However just because you pay for it, does not mean you have to get your moneys worth.
And Obamacare does not deal with that basic problem.
Honestly until it is addressed, American Healthcare will always by far more expensive and far less effective than so called socialist medicine.
BTW I had private healthcare in the UK too, so ( anyone that does not belong to the far raging right), you can understand that the UK does not actually have a socialist medicine regime. That UK plan cost me 49GBP a month in 2004 (that is approx $80/month US Dollars) and had no co-pays, I didn’t even no what a copay was until i came to the US.
Because of Affordable Healthcare Act as of January 2014 my, HC Insurance went down from $1480/month previously to $1002/month for a family of three, my cost as an individual would be $420/ month.
I can also tell you the Platinum Plan from BlueCross that I have this year, is not even close to my 2004 $80/month UK BUPA policy.
This not about flag waving, the Union Jack is not better than the Stars and Stripes, but seriously there are few issues in life that will affect you as much.
Whether you are a Brit a or from the USA or from anywhere else, you will get sick, you will need medical care and quiet frankly a system that everybody pays for and everybody knows is there when it’s needed, works better,
You cannot build your own Freeway, it’s just impossible, but you can still drive on it when you want, you can get on and off when you need to, get to where you need to go (most of the time anyway), yet Freeways, though not privately owned, are not referred to as Socialist Freeways.
A quick update on my post from yesterday.
I went to the BUPA site and entered my personal details to get an up to date UK quote for Private Healthcare in the UK for comparison.
There were only 2 options and i chose the most expesnsive.
The quote came out at 203.06 GBP that’s approx $325 (US Dollars)/month.
However, even a brief read through indicates a great many things are not covered and the pre-existing condition clause, now seems to be far more enforced.
In short, as I am now a parent and worry far more about Healthcare, I would not want to use BUPA without the backup of the NHS.
The Plan offered from BUPA now is more in line with the kind of not great plans that were available in the USA before Obamacare was implemented.
As such it is not fair comparison of coverage to make between a BUPA plan and the BlueSheild plan for coverage i have now.
Therefore not a fair comparison on the cost of each either.
What the US doesn’t understand is that yes the NHS may look like a Communist idea but in fact it along with the welfare system and free state education were born out of Christianity instead of Communism. They were born out of the idea that Victorian/Edwardian Christian philanthropists had that there should be state run organisations for everyone but mostly the poor to access greatly needed help, which was high considering poverty and illness in Britain was quite substantial at this time. Also we do have to pay for dentistry, opticians, and prescribed medication after the age of 18 and if you aren’t on any assistance.
As an experienced NHS person…this is BAU in the UK… 92% although not ideal is trying hard. The NHS is a political football in the UK and it is very much so at the moment with every potential doomsday scenario reported and the BBC in particular is very left wing reporting…..BBC reporters and editors, and many senior left wing politicians went to the same UNI courses PPE of course. Yes there is a problem with A&E……there is most winters….and equally we have a cash shortage ….. Perhaps we need to educate our population NOT to treat A&E properly….about 25% of unnecessary visits.
You say that it “blows the mind” (to use your inelegant expression) of the British that people can enter bankruptcy in the USA due to medical bills. I would say it’s more accurate to say that we find it incomprehensible that this should happen in a world-leading country. This might be understandable in a developing coutry, but in such a rich country as the USA it seems to us to be positive third-world. There are many (myself included) who rate the degree of civilisation in a country by the way it treats its most needy.