NHS Bashing again...

[woody69]

It isn't free, we pay for it through tax and National Insurance and prescription charges.

Yes, I know. I already qualified my comment with my follow up post stating it is "free at the point of service".

It's is cobblers

If I have a private operation, and pay for it, the hospital charge what it costs plus a profit mark up and I've never paid £90k for all the private operations I've had added together, let alone just a new knee!

'Standard' Hip replacement - including Hospital costs, is just over £11K

How's the shoe repair business?

Again, I am not talking about the cost charged to the patient. I am talking about the hidden costs with all the people involved, the after care, the drugs, the physio. I appreciate that £90k was plucked out of the air and it may well not be that much for a "standard" operation, but the costs could very easily get that high if there are complications.

 

[chrisd]

Yes, I know. I already qualified my comment with my follow up post stating it is "free at the point of service".





Again, I am not talking about the cost charged to the patient. I am talking about the hidden costs with all the people involved, the after care, the drugs, the physio. I appreciate that £90k was plucked out of the air and it may well not be that much for a "standard" operation, but the costs could very easily get that high if there are complications.

It still cobblers Woody. When I went private they charge for every single thing and that includes the overheads such as rates, light, heating etc etc and as Foxholer said, the cost was, for me, in the region of £10,000 per hip. All those things that you mention are added to, or, included in the bill, depending on the specific hospital.

This is simple business costing, eventually the customer/s pay all the costs. As Blueinmunich posted, the NHS works like an insurance, everyone pays in (through taxes, prescriptions etc) and some need a lot of NHS use and some need none and, to a degree, the income and expenditure, balance out annually.

I would also argue whether "free at the point of service" is a fair statement as well, as, in most cases we've all paid loads in before we need treatment, so they are holding our money "at the point of service"

 

[guest100718]

I think the NHS are great.

 

[MadAdey]

People are saying that we pay for it through prescription charges, I am not sure the exact pricing on these are but I feel we do not pay the full amount. In America you get taken to the cleaners over medication. My future stepson is on ADHD medication, the actual price if the insurance was not paying is £130 a month, that is for 30 tablets.

I just do not understand how anyone can be annoyed at the system we have. It is instant health care that you do not have to sit around waiting for insurance companies to authorise treatment for. You can walk into any hospital tell them your sick and get looked after, to the fullest extent.

 

[Rooter]

You can walk into any hospital tell them your sick and get looked after, to the fullest extent.

If you had a leg hanging off yes, i agree. if however its not immediately life threatening then i'm sorry, i disagree. I am 4 months from seeing the doc for the first time and seeing a consultant next week.

 

[Dellboy]

If it wasn't for the fantastic NHS I wouldn't have seen my 9th birthday, major heart Op, now 50 and going strong.

 

[chrisd]

People are saying that we pay for it through prescription charges, I am not sure the exact pricing on these are but I feel we do not pay the full amount. In America you get taken to the cleaners over medication. My future stepson is on ADHD medication, the actual price if the insurance was not paying is £130 a month, that is for 30 tablets.

I just do not understand how anyone can be annoyed at the system we have. It is instant health care that you do not have to sit around waiting for insurance companies to authorise treatment for. You can walk into any hospital tell them your sick and get looked after, to the fullest extent.

I agree to a large extent with what you say Adey, if you compare it to countries where treatment is fully charged for. I was golfing with a hospital consultant the other day and said that I feel that non clinical matters should be run more by business men as I guess there is huge amounts of money wasted that could go into primary care and he was in full agreement and was certain that waiting time would be reduced.

 

[MadAdey]

If you had a leg hanging off yes, i agree. if however its not immediately life threatening then i'm sorry, i disagree. I am 4 months from seeing the doc for the first time and seeing a consultant next week.

It is all about priorities. If you are not in a serious condition, then you have to wait behind people who are.

Back in September 2011 i had an accident that ended up with me having a type 3 ac separation. Basically my collar bone had broke from the joint and was sitting an inch higher then my shoulder blade, my shoulder was dislocated, I had torn the ligament that goes from the shoulder blade to into you neck, along with the actual shoulder muscle and the one in your back that sits against your shoulder blade. I had to wait 4 hours in the A+E to see someone. I was in pain like i had never imagined and the nurses put a morphine drip in me to make me comfortable. I then found out the reason I was waiting, there had been an RTA where a young kid had rolled his car with another 4 people in it and all 5 of them where in being sorted.

Sometime you are not the most important person that the NHS has got to deal with. If your problem is not of the utmost importance then you will just have to go onto a routine waiting list and wait your turn, as they need to keep appointments clear in case of emergency appointments. I was told that by my cousin who works as a specialist at the Royal Infirmary Hospital in Leicester. If you went into see your GP and you had a huge lump on your nuts, you would get in pretty quick like I did. I had a scan 3 days after seeing my doctor and getting referred.

 

[Ethan]

It still cobblers Woody. When I went private they charge for every single thing and that includes the overheads such as rates, light, heating etc etc and as Foxholer said, the cost was, for me, in the region of £10,000 per hip. All those things that you mention are added to, or, included in the bill, depending on the specific hospital.

This is simple business costing, eventually the customer/s pay all the costs. As Blueinmunich posted, the NHS works like an insurance, everyone pays in (through taxes, prescriptions etc) and some need a lot of NHS use and some need none and, to a degree, the income and expenditure, balance out annually.

I would also argue whether "free at the point of service" is a fair statement as well, as, in most cases we've all paid loads in before we need treatment, so they are holding our money "at the point of service"

They are amateurs in therms of pricing compared to American hospitals. A 2 night stay at a decent US hospital for an append(ic)ectomy will cost around $25000, and a hip replacement twice as much.

There is a big difference between price and cost. Economists look at marginal costs, i.e the cost of doing one more. If you have a hospital which is fully staffed and has capacity, the cost of doing one more procedure is pretty modest, mostly consumables, because the staff are there anyway. The NHS used to be operated on that basis.

Retail price is an entirely different approach, in which every staff members time is priced out, and every consumable is charged at an inflated rate, and then an additional markup is applied. This is how private hospitals calculate their bills.

 

[Rumpokid]

Bottom line is that NHS is oversubscribed, at breaking point, yet still has a bottomless pit of money thrown at it..
Treatment appointment at doc's 6 weeks from diagnosis,
Those of us of a certain age (and i am not that old),remember when you got sorted sharpish..
You could write an essay on how bad the system is ,,,Furthermore,i do not see what the American comparisons are on here for.
Bariatrics???..Hmm waste of money, Anti depressants etc waste of money,but dished out willy nilly, Free boob job/reductions ha ha..Dish out loads of Methadone? Not the answer..Go to casualty with a potty stuck on your head, or a cold..Get real..
The list is endless and the leviathan that is the NHS will get slower and slower unless radical plans are put in place!

 

[MadAdey]

Bottom line is that NHS is oversubscribed, at breaking point, yet still has a bottomless pit of money thrown at it..
Treatment appointment at doc's 6 weeks from diagnosis,
Those of us of a certain age (and i am not that old),remember when you got sorted sharpish..
You could write an essay on how bad the system is ,,,Furthermore,i do not see what the American comparisons are on here for.
Bariatrics???..Hmm waste of money, Anti depressants etc waste of money,but dished out willy nilly, Free boob job/reductions ha ha..Dish out loads of Methadone? Not the answer..Go to casualty with a potty stuck on your head, or a cold..Get real..
The list is endless and the leviathan that is the NHS will get slower and slower unless radical plans are put in place!

the comparisons to America are being used to try and explain to people how good they have it in this country with the nhs. Trust me I never realised until recently, but with the NHS we are very very lucky.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Don't you get covered in the US with medical insurance but there are plenty places that do "pro bono" ( think it's called ) where you get free medical if you can't afford insurance

 

[Rumpokid]

Don't you get covered in the US with medical insurance but there are plenty places that do "pro bono" ( think it's called ) where you get free medical if you can't afford insurance

Agreed.Do not recall folks in the US struggling for healthcare,if so it would be big news..Not saying US system is better or worse..Believe me,we do not have it that good as MadAdey says..We pay a fortune to prop it up and listen to doctors surgery appointment robots telling us to ring back when they are not so busy at any time of day!!

 

[MadAdey]

Don't you get covered in the US with medical insurance but there are plenty places that do "pro bono" ( think it's called ) where you get free medical if you can't afford insurance

You have medical insurance, but it is not cheap. I said about it earlier in the thread, $600 for a 90% policy with a $1000 deductable for me and her kids. Basically an $11000 dollar treatment would cost me $2000 out of my own pocket as I have the $1000 deductable and the insurance only pay 90% of the bill. With the amount treatment costs there, just going for a few scans could cost you that.

Regarding free medical care the have a legal obligation to do the minimum needed to make you comfortable and that is all the do until they get authorisation from your insurance company to do any more. Basically if you turned up with your finger in a plastic bag and did not have insurance or any way of paying for it, they would just stitch the stump up and kick you out the door, rather than stitching it back on as that would cost more.

Best example was last year on detachment with the RAF. We had an incident that involved vodka and a pair of high powered jet skis. One of the lads got hit and had his knee cap split in half, he had about a 2" inch gap between the top part and the bottom part. They patched him up, gave him some pain killers and packed him on his way because we could not get the payment sorted out quick enough. He had to go back 2 days later and get the operation carried out that he needed. The cost of all this was about $80000, not cheap to be sick over there.

 

[Ethan]

Bottom line is that NHS is oversubscribed, at breaking point, yet still has a bottomless pit of money thrown at it..
Treatment appointment at doc's 6 weeks from diagnosis,
Those of us of a certain age (and i am not that old),remember when you got sorted sharpish..
You could write an essay on how bad the system is ,,,Furthermore,i do not see what the American comparisons are on here for.
Bariatrics???..Hmm waste of money, Anti depressants etc waste of money,but dished out willy nilly, Free boob job/reductions ha ha..Dish out loads of Methadone? Not the answer..Go to casualty with a potty stuck on your head, or a cold..Get real..
The list is endless and the leviathan that is the NHS will get slower and slower unless radical plans are put in place!

Bariatrics, methadone etc are a drop in the ocean, although they bother the Daily Mail readers a great deal. Anti-depressants are not a waste of money when used properly.

The real wastage in the NHS comes from PFI payments, which are extortionate and crippling many Trusts, the spend on management consultants and other advisers to give advice which is either bleeding obvious in the first place or just plain stupid, management costs of tracking targets, supporting political initiatives and all the paperwork associated with a massive move towards business record keeping. Much of this is, of course, necessary to help price services for private buy outs. The same reason lies behind the changes in NHS Pensions - the private sector won't take on the liability.

 

[Ethan]

Don't you get covered in the US with medical insurance but there are plenty places that do "pro bono" ( think it's called ) where you get free medical if you can't afford insurance

There are some free clinics although woefully too few, and Emergency Rooms (i.e. Accident and Emergency) will give free emergency care. That is fine for a fracture or appendicitis, but not so good for management of chronic conditions. Sections of the US population who have no insurance get third world health outcomes.

I have conducted clinical trials in some of the best hospitals in the US, Massachusetts General, Memorial Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic etc, and for people with resources, these places are very very good indeed, with cutting edge treatments and highly trained professionals. They cost a fortune, though. Go down market a bit and you still get decent care at hospitals which resemble modern and well resourced NHS hospitals. But go down a couple of steps further and it really is like the developing world. People who do not get Medicaid (federal insurance for the poorest) because they have a minimum wage job cannot get more than basic emergency care. That is no good for people with chronic conditions or for health screening and long term prevention. As a result, health outcomes in these groups are much worse than in the insured.

In the US, there is a paranoia about socialism, so the idea of socialised medicine (such as the NHS) gets a knee jerk response from most of those who don't really understand it or have a staked interest to prevent it (those funded by the health insurers, and the US doctors groups are not a great help either). That is why Obama was unable to introduce the first step in such a system, which would be a single-payer system.The lobbyists killed it. This would have essentially provided Medicare (the federal insurance system for the elderly) to all. But Republicans wouldn't wear that (even though members of Congress get exactly the same themselves) so it was dead in the water.

Cost control is urgently needed in US healthcare. Healthcare spending of 17% of GDP is unsustainable with the direction population demographics are going.

 

[SocketRocket]

The NHS can cope as long as enough people contribute to it. The Government have not cut their budget, the problems we are seeing now is due to an increase in demand that is not supported by an increase in supply.

We cant continue to fund this by borrowing, no more than we can support Welfare and public sector pensions. So how do the leftist amongst us propose we deal with it? Banker Bonus tax: that seems to be the answer to all our woes!

Maybe those of us that work should be paying a lot more tax so that those that dont want to can be elevated to the middle classes.

Or! maybe it's all the fault of the DM for playing with our minds.

 

[harpo_72]

I am of the opinion that if you can afford private health premiums you should and leave the nhs to those that cannot. Perhaps you won't be able to lease the latest greatest car, buy a new set of irons every season or driver, go down the pub 5 days a week or have a meal out several times a month ... The point is if your careless with your disposable cash on trivial stuff then your burdening the nhs when your problems come. Just look at your finances and think what is more important peace of mind and being seen to quickly or that new driver that really won't make a difference ( especially if your knee is knackered) ... Come on guys wipe your own backsides and pick up your own dog's turds, be responsible.

 

[Blue in Munich]

I am of the opinion that if you can afford private health premiums you should and leave the nhs to those that cannot. Perhaps you won't be able to lease the latest greatest car, buy a new set of irons every season or driver, go down the pub 5 days a week or have a meal out several times a month ... The point is if your careless with your disposable cash on trivial stuff then your burdening the nhs when your problems come. Just look at your finances and think what is more important peace of mind and being seen to quickly or that new driver that really won't make a difference ( especially if your knee is knackered) ... Come on guys wipe your own backsides and pick up your own dog's turds, be responsible.

Why the hell should I have to? I'm given no choice in the fact that money is extracted from my wages every month to provide a health service and you expect me to give up the few luxuries I do have to make a few fat cats even fatter paying for a private policy on top? Get real. I'll consider paying for private when I'm given the opportunity to opt out of the NHS.

 

[Rooter]

I am of the opinion that if you can afford private health premiums you should and leave the nhs to those that cannot. Perhaps you won't be able to lease the latest greatest car, buy a new set of irons every season or driver, go down the pub 5 days a week or have a meal out several times a month ... The point is if your careless with your disposable cash on trivial stuff then your burdening the nhs when your problems come. Just look at your finances and think what is more important peace of mind and being seen to quickly or that new driver that really won't make a difference ( especially if your knee is knackered) ... Come on guys wipe your own backsides and pick up your own dog's turds, be responsible.

So bloke A. Who earns good money from working hard, paid thousands in taxes and NI over the years develops a condition, you are saying he should have to pay for it himself?