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NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:22 pm
by ssorenn
There’s lots of brits here. Please tell me how this is working out. I believe it turns 70 years old this year. Are you liking your National healthcare ?

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 23, 2018 11:46 pm
by Octavious
Yep. It remains universally popular. Why do you ask?

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 2:07 am
by ssorenn

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 2:47 am
by Telamor
Don't adopt it then ssorenn. I'm happy to continue with healthcare free at the point of demand.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:56 am
by ssorenn
i like that you think, i have the option to adopt it or not, i'll call the batphonne and get right on it.....haha

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 7:35 am
by Octavious
Surprisingly enough every patient doesn't demand an unlimited amount. I know the American media likes to criticise the NHS, but the reality is that it's pretty damned effective and receives overwhelming public support. It's also worth pointing out that private health care exists in the UK as well for those who wish to go that way.

I think that most Brits, indeed most people in the Western World, look at the American system and pity you. Whether that perception is deserved or not I don't know, but it's true.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 6:08 pm
by Telamor
ssorenn wrote:
Tue Jul 24, 2018 3:56 am
i like that you think, i have the option to adopt it or not, i'll call the batphonne and get right on it.....haha
:eyeroll:

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 7:24 pm
by pangloss
A couple of years ago, I went on a trip with a friend after graduation. We met an American couple on a train, and we eventually got to talking about health care (we're Canadian).

The woman had lupus and required constant treatment and doctor visits. She told us that it was very difficult for her to get a spot to see a doctor, and so she had resorted to paying another health care professional to save her a spot in the queue. This other person charged US$1000 per year.

She also had no problem disparaging the Canadian health care system. All the Canadians she knows, you see, go to the USA for health care. It must be innovation like the professional spot-saver that sets American health care above the rest.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:21 pm
by ssorenn
Oct. I’ll take the pity. While you can get good health care in the US, the costs are exorbitant. My premiums have over quadrupled in 4 years. Thx to obama care.That POS. The bureaucracy from healthcare providers is horrid and only adds to growing premiums.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:02 pm
by MajorMitchell
An attempt at moving to a form of a Federal tax funded universal health care service in the USA that failed does not, sweetypie ssssorrennn axiomatically mean that no other nations can reasonably successfully implement that type of national public health service.
Plus sweetypie ssssorrennn, I like how you hold Obama solely responsible for the failure in the USA.. the opponents of his proposals for reform in Congress, the Senate, in private health insurance companies etc etc were most effective in nobbling the compromised mess that currently exists.
That which don't suit your ideological blinker'd world view is fakenews & TrumpGod Truthspeak is the opiate of the wednex ?

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:06 pm
by MajorMitchell
... edit / clarification..
Obama's opponents... etc etc were most effective in nobbling his attempted reforms and equally or more responsible for creating the compromised mess that currently exists in the USA.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:10 pm
by MajorMitchell
Or is it "TrumpGod Truthtwitterspeak" that is the opiate of the TrumpGod acolytes ?

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 8:49 pm
by Randomizer
ssorenn wrote:
Tue Jul 24, 2018 8:21 pm
Oct. I’ll take the pity. While you can get good health care in the US, the costs are exorbitant. My premiums have over quadrupled in 4 years. Thx to obama care.That POS. The bureaucracy from healthcare providers is horrid and only adds to growing premiums.
My premiums in a nonprofit health insurance were going up like that before Obamacare even while increasing my deductible to lower them. While my company wasn't included in a study of nonprofits, most were increasing premiums far in excess of actual costs and claims to build up 800% reserves over expenses. They were piling up money and as nonprofits there was no place to spend it and they had no intention of returning or lowering premiums to payers.

At least under Obamacare, I got a refund and lower annual increases.

I will say part of the problem is fraud because it's cheaper to pay out and raise premiums rather than go after criminals. Medicare has it worse since they are required to pay claims faster than they can investigate.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 11:29 pm
by flash2015
Nothing new here. Just more self-justification for NIH instead of NHS...

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Tue Jul 31, 2018 5:48 am
by Hellenic Riot
The NHS is currently struggling after a prolonged period of real terms cuts in funding and combinations of pay freezes & increasing workloads caused by government reforms such as non-emergency surgeries on weekends (described as essentially spreading the same amount of butter over too much toast). Even the Conservative party have belatedly recognised that they've underfunded it, and have managed to dig out some of the money needed to get it back on track (though not all of it of course, being the Tories).

The NHS has always fluctuated in fortune though - it's only just over a decade since Blair had the lowest ever waiting times and very strong performances all round (one of his better achievements in power). That the NHS has been recruiting doctors and nurses from abroad for decades is more a damning indictment of our education system not being able to produce enough at home, along with the pay freeze making less people interested in putting the extreme amounts of work in required to become a doctor or nurse which have caused the recent exacerbation of these shortages. It's no surprise that the public sector pay freeze has also led to a massive shortage of teachers, which is arguably causing more problems than the nurse shortages (doctor shortages aren't very pronounced yet, but given the average career span of doctors shortages on new uptakes would also take longer to have a noticeable effect).

So no, the NHS is not perfect, nor will it ever be. But no health system in the world is, because there are always things that can be improved upon. But the NHS is fair, and it has overwhelming support at all echelons of society - even including those who also use private healthcare.

As for comparing the situation in America to that in Britain when Attlee implemented it in the first place - we were, I believe, the first major country in the world to implement universal free healthcare. It's not exactly a surprise that this led to unforeseen teething problems, is it? I would like to think that a country like America implementing it nowadays could look at the issues other countries have had and come up with solutions to avoid them ahead of time, preferably by an improved structure at the start, rather than having to bodge and fix things later. Although, looking at the current American government, maybe not...

Oh, and most amusingly of all, America spends 18% of its GDP on healthcare. The UK spends just under 10%. And yet, despite all that extra spending, America lags behind almost every other western nation on measures like child mortality, life expectancy, and obesity rates.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 5:17 am
by MajorMitchell
I think the creation of the UK's NHS has to be understood in it's historical context. The experiences of post WW1 Britain influenced the way they approached the post WW2 period, I think there was a strong collective desire to create a better society "for all".
It can also be argued that there are national economic benefits from having a healthier population. Just one simple example.. less lost days of production because workers take less time off for sickness.

Re: NHS, Britain’s National Heath Service

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2018 10:26 am
by brainbomb
American Republicans love seeing healthcare programs like NHS fail. They dont care about what happens when.a program like yours struggles, they just see it as a bottom line victory against pro-society social reform