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American health care vs the world!
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I can provide 100% coverage for $1 a month as long as I define coverage as "things I can cover with a band-aid".
I wouldn't say better, I'd go with more customized.
My insurance doesn't give me anything more than the Government health care would, but it does allow me to get non-critical things done quicker (but not by a lot, since Health Insurance is cheap, a lot of people have it) and allows me more flexibility on how I go about it.
I have insurance because I choose too (and it's freely provided by work) not because I have too.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
You don't judge a healthcare system by how well it does non-critical things.
I had appendicitis when I was 14 and visiting my grandparents on the other side of the country. My parents took me to the nearest hospital and they operated on me immediately. When I was back home and needed checkups or the stitches out, we called the local doctor and booked an appointment for the next day. No wait, no fuss and no worries about whether my parents could afford to keep their first born alive.
That's healthcare in the first world.
Critical in the States is often pretty close to emergency care. That's bullshit.
Click here for a horrible H/A thread with details.
We have preventative care also and it's there even if you're broke. If you want to have it in a plush office with leather chairs, you can still go private.
I can only judge it on non-critical things unfortunately.
But from what I've been told, critical things get handled here very well.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Aren't you from outside America? The experience in pretty much every country with social we medicine seems to show that private healthcare is still better than Public care in those countries.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
What a fucking winner.
Private healthcare will always be better than public healthcare, but having a public option that doesn't suck provides competition and forces the private sector to step up its game and provide a better quality service. There's no point paying $10k for a procedure that you can get for free elsewhere unless the private option is better somehow. I'm in Australia and I recently switched from a private clinic that charged $60 for a GP's appointment to a bulk-billing (free) one, and I haven't noticed a significant drop in quality of service at all yet, there's just a slightly longer wait before I'm seen and no TV in the waiting room. At 60 bucks a pop, I can live with that.
What I'm saying is, having a public option that's decent forces the private option to be even better, or lose all their business.
Pretty much this.
My health insurance is cheap, and provides nice benefits, because if they weren't/didn't I just wouldn't use them.
I've had the opportunity in the last 2 months to visit quite a few different doctors, specialists and labs.
The private ones had nicer offices, but the level of care was comparable.
Edit: This is compared to South Africa where the Health Insurance was expensive, and cover was limited.
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
Yes and if you were an adult this might happen to
then a month later you'd get a bill for $55,000
If you can afford it. Which is why the UK still, 60 years after the NHS was created, has a thriving private healthcare market.
But that doesn't mean that private care gives better overall care than public care, or that private companies give better coverage than the government.
Those are entirely separate issues. And I know that in the US media, reports of waiting lists etc in countries with socialised health care are vastly overblown. And when I say vastly overblown, I mean massively exaggerated. And when I say massively exaggerated, I mean flat-out lies.
Aren't those lines pretty much just "this rich dude could just pay for the treatment here, but there he has to wait a bit?" And by that, I mean the media never mentions that he is rich?
The rich dude can just pay for treatment there through a private practice doctor.
If you get a critical health problem in a UHC, its the ER same as the US.
Edit: At least that's the case in Norway
basically for me right now private healthcare is no healthcare, which puts America's healthcare system today about on the level of Mogadishu's unless I'm seriously injured in which case suddenly I have competent healthcare for just long enough to keep me from dying and then am financially ruined forever
It does get a bit odd in NZ sometimes though, perhaps due to the size of the country.
So I also had private health insurance in NZ for some years and used it largely as Mortious outlined, to skip the queue to see specialists for non acute issues. However, on the one occasion I used it for an emergency (not sure if it meets definition of acute), the same person who was scheduled to have done the operation under public system was the guy who did it privately. I understand that it is pretty common to have specialists have a private practice running alongside their public duties in such places, if just that the market/profession/system probably cannot sustain having a lot of specialists in a lightly populated area. Now that seems to be something that everyone in the system is aware of and it may be that the public system cannot afford to hire him all week, at least by comparison to what he might be able to get (in income) as pure private or elsewhere (overseas I would think) if he decided to do that. But I must admit it was a trifle odd at first
For acute, well, yes, I've been through the NZ system a bit and it is pretty fast/good. Non acute, well, it depends on the condition and the area you live in and Waiting Lists very much have been a political issue in NZ for as long as I have read the political section of the newspapers.
This is pretty much the gist of it as far as I understand. It's too expensive for a Public hospital to keep a certain specialist on staff, so a Private specialist is contracted for a certain amount of time per week.
It's also, at least partially, a demand thing as well. NZ just doesn't have the population concentrated enough to make certain specialists viable as a full time Public employee. So instead they'll be contracted in as needed to fill any gaps in the Public coverage. That would pretty much require private specialists so that the different District Health Boards aren't treading all over each others shoes with jurisdiction (and thus payment) problems.
which reminds me, I need to book my next boobsqueeze.
even without residency and no insurance, it's only like $140 bucks.
i. love. this. country. and the healthcare.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
You must not be far off residency now. I would be interested in knowing how much cheaper it is.
My casual doctor's visits are about $60 right now. After i get my residency I think it goes down to like $15 or something ridiculous.
like a Co-pay but not really!
I'm gonna start working on my residency paperwork right after the wedding (in 7 months ohmygod). Get that sorted through most of the start of next year, then send in the paperwork and then pray. lol.
but seriously, it is so much better down here I can't even believe it.
You have to fight through some bad days, to earn the best days of your life.
My doctor appointments are $17 a visit.
2 week course of useless anti-depressant meds was $5.
Insurance premium for spouse (since mine is free) is $36mo (Though that might be subsidised since she's on my plan?)
Back in SA, for both of us cost $315mo. And that excluded medication and doctor's visits.
Good luck on you residency app!
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/user/Mort-ZA/
@MortNZ
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mortious
right and one that had been used to force the central government to change
HIV policy
This part is never really talk about when people talk about UHC, but at a certain point even the small copays drop away. You hit the limit of between $150 and $500 and all the cost fall away for the rest of the year. If you have a permanent medical condition, you will never pay for medical cost in relation to that condition. My dad had a heart bypass and needs a bunch of medicines to live(doing fine) and has never paid a dime for any of them. That is 5-6 very expensive medical drugs and not a dime in copay.
As if the system says "wow, guess you are really sick, better get this shit looked at".
Edit: This is the case in Norway.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
So up till a certain age all children get or got free dental care, delivered by a government service of nurses (whether the quality is good enough is another question), then I think free care till 18. After that you are on your own I think and there is no subsidy.
Everything relating to your health is covered. If you can prove for example that plastic surgery would improve your health (usually mental) then it will be covered under the NHS. Good examples include plastic surgery after burns/ disfiguring accidents. Or breast reduction surgery for people who have back problems. If you can make a convincing enough claim to the NHS you will get your surgery done.
If you want a nose job because you think your nose ain't great then chances are you will have to go private.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/117205/americans-not-feeling-health-benefits-high-spending.aspx
about median on satisfaction, a little below median for health index
somewhere around double in per-capita cost
usa usa
elective procedures are kind of covered and kind of controversial. i saw a documentary about a guy seeking a sex change in england in the 90s, and he had to jump through a number of hoops and wait a while before he was cleared for it. the documentary interviewed a number of "men on the street" who did not think this was a good use of their tax money. it happened eventually though.
cosmetic surgery is, i think, similar
Worse still is when the daily mail manages to get hold of stuff like women getting breast implants for psycological reasons.
It doesn't happen a lot but it happens enough for people who enjoy getting outraged to get outraged about.
He lives on as cheezburger grease in our hearts.
Infertility is one of those things private insurance doesn't cover because it is a dumb expensive, not "medically necessary"*, and as their are typically only a handful of competitive players in each market, it's risky as hell to get ahead of the ball.
Of the companies in my area that have offered it in the past as a rider to a plan, that rider costs $TEXAS.
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM
Waiting lists in America are almost worse than socialized countries.
My mother has bcbs, she waited almost 2 months to have her gallbladder removed. She contemplated going over to Canada and dropping the $1000-3000 (forgot the exact number, but it wasn't that high) or so to have the surgery done there, because, 2 months was borderline dangerous at her age.
In general the argument usually comes down to cost-effectiveness (which in the instance of things like cosmetic surgery or sex reassignment surgery includes considerations like balancing the cost against providing this person with therapy and/or psychiatric medication for the rest of their lives, which is a calculation healthcare providers using an insurance model don't typically have to make, as their risk horizon is so short), public expectation, and room in the budget.
I don't think (or I've certainly never heard of) a doctor refusing to do work on behalf of the NHS. If you're a top specialist that is where most of your referrals are going to come from, pretty much by definition.
EDIT: on fertility treatment, the general approach taken (though it varies between different health authorities) is generally a balancing of the reasons for the infertility with the chance of success and the risk of carrying out whatever procedure is selected. It's definitely available, but tends to cover a different group of people than private providers (because their market principally consists of catering to the people that the NHS won't).
Comparing anecdotes wrt Murican Healthcare is pointless. Timing and Geography can flip your story to bowens (and vice versa) very quickly even if your plans are identical.
You're xpecting sense when there is none
#FreeScheck
#FreeSKFM