[ Closed ] UK and Canadian Patients... (Page 2 of 2)

Reading this again reminded me of another part of the Health system here.

As part of the UK's membership of the EU, there is now an arrangement with all other EU states that you can get medical treatment throughout the EU. You get a card from the UK Gov't  and by showing it in Roumania, Italy, Germany, the hospital can claim back the cost from the UK Govt. It's in the back of my passport.

I suppose that's socialist too !

I don't have any complaints about how I personally have received care either.  When I was a child, I had some birth defects that caused a lot of care regarding my legs.  Special shoes, leg braces, special therapies, etc.  What insurance didn't cover, a charity called "Crippled Childrens Fund" did- or almost did.  Even recently I required several surgeries in my throat and another on my shoulder, and my doctor has started to ask about when I intend to have my other shoulder fixed.  My daughter also requires some surgical procedures annually to assess recovery/worsening of a condition.  For all these surgeries, we had some expenses surely, but almost all of it was covered by insurance.  I think we were out about $5,000/year for the family max deductable.  In my situation, with a good paying job at a stable company, that's not too bad.  I'm extremely grateful for my job, for my insurance, and for the high quality medical care I've received.  So I'm not knocking our system whatsoever.

However, I am recognizing that my positive experience is far from universal.  There are many, including both of my sisters and my father and step-mother, who are at the mercy of social programs.  Therefore, when I advocate for social programs, bear in mind that my opinion is partially tainted by selfish motivation of looking out for my family. 

- Zurf

About five years ago I was sent for a scan to check breathing problims, the scan also showed

a shadow in my left Kidney, it turned out to be cancer.  I was seen a week before Christmas

of that year, and by the 7th of January after that Christmas I was in hospital and had the

kidney removed and then  after a month got the news that the cancer had not got outside the

kidney. That was in Belfast on the NHS. No waiting, no cost.

Luck and Health to all!!!

Illegal immigration has nothing to do with it, and my statement is exactly true.

It is against the law for a hospital to deny you life saving care.  If you show up at an emergency room hemorrhaging blood out your bum because your prostate cancer has metastasized into your colon, they'll treat that, stabilize you,  and ensure you don't bleed to death.   You'll die from the cancer in short order after they get you home, but hey, at least you got some medical care.

And if your 17 year old son comes down with testicular cancer, and your insurance caps out at a million dollars lifetime, yet the treatment for it runs upwards of two million dollars, your options are to go bankrupt, or watch your child die.

I've personally seen both of those scenarios here in the states.  Neither would happen in Europe or Canada.  But I defy you to show up to an emergency room and ask for a prostate exam, or a checkup and cancer screen. 

In nations with socialized medicine, they have lower costs, cover more people, and most importantly, they have better health outcomes than we do in the states.

do we really have to argue over this?

is there an arguement brewing?

was there one about to start?
was there the potential for one?

Ah - The ol' preventative care argument - Another BS spin that has increased the costs of health care in the US.

According to the CBO and the New England Journal of Medicine:

A study in the journal Circulation found that for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, "if all the recommended prevention activities were applied with 100 percent success," the prevention would cost almost 10 times as much as the savings, increasing the country's total medical bill by 162 percent. Elmendorf additionally cites a definitive assessment in the New England Journal of Medicine that reviewed hundreds of studies on preventive care and found that more than 80 percent of preventive measures added to medical costs. ... Read More

http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesK … yth?page=2

Yes I hope that compromise comes soon cause the Change, I've been waitin for better hurry cause the change, in pocket is darn near gone!

I'm not sure that Jerome was talking about preventive care. Over here preventive care is about not smoking, taking exercise, drinking moderately etc

It seems to me that it's about when a worry turns into a crisis. I want to be able to ask about my worries.

If I'm bleeding where I shouldn't be bleeding, or finding it difficult to climb the stairs, then I want to be able to ask a Doctor. That's not preventative care, it's medical care. if I have to wait until I hit the ground, then that's no care at all.

Not at all - and these type of things (minor consults) could paid paid out of pocket in a worse case scenario. It's the ridiculous rate of advanced, extremely expensive testing (MRI's, CT Scans, etc.) that have added substantially to the nation's health care bill.

Indeed, perhaps the most significant reason Americans are drowning in health care debt may shock you: Americans are getting far too much unnecessary care. Of our total $2.3 trillion health care bill last year, a whopping $500 billion to $700 billion was spent on treatments, tests, and hospitalizations that did nothing to improve our health. Even worse, new evidence suggests that too much health care may actually be killing us. According to estimates by Elliott Fisher, M.D., a noted Dartmouth researcher, unnecessary care leads to the deaths of as many as 30,000 Medicare recipients annually.

OK.  We've turned the corner from what is to what ought to be.  I was interested in learning about people's real world experiences in health care delivery systems other than our own.  This thread was meant to chase away some personal boogeymen for me, to see if the shadows being cast on those systems are fair representations of the systems themselves.  It was not meant to discuss any particular bills or causes or what-have-you. 

All are entitled to their opinions on what ought to be done, if anything, of course.  I have my own.  However, I did not mean to share those here. 

The purpose of the thread has been achieved.  Moderators, please feel free to lock the thread or pull it if it turns into more of a political "ought to be" discussion.

Thanks,
Zurf