[ghporter]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

You mean illegal immigrants? My wife, child, and I started off on Medicare and not once did we visit an emergency room for anything other than emergency situations. If you don't have health insurance in this country, it is because you either don't want it or you're not trying to get it. If we placed half as much into an HSA as we do on eating out and entertainment on an annual basis, we wouldn't be having these discussions. Everyone knows welfare is for the middle class.

No, I mean citizens who have almost no resources. In some cases I've seen what could be three generations of families without a "regular doctor," or for that matter without any concept of "health maintenance," leaving them to depend on emergency services for "way later than it should be" medical care. Which, by the way, impacts the health of each family member negatively and permanently.

While I'm sure there are plenty of illegals who slip through the cracks here in San Antonio, I also know that there are a huge number who get NO medical attention, no matter how serious the issue, because they expect to be identified and deported-which is not how the medical community here works. There are people who come across the border to San Antonio for medical care, but they typically can pay at least something for their care, and often they come so they can get actually effective medical care, rather than depending on "something else" from the border area's really bad situation...often what can charitably be called "traditional practitioners" whose qualifications are completely nonmedical.

[OldManMac]

Originally Posted by ebuddy 

If you don't have health insurance in this country, it is because you either don't want it or you're not trying to get it.

There you go again, with your elitist "I did it and so can you" attitude. You really don't get that not everyone sees their opportunities in the same light as you, do you?

[ebuddy]

Originally Posted by OldManMac 

There you go again, with your elitist "I did it and so can you" attitude. You really don't get that not everyone sees their opportunities in the same light as you, do you?

Funny you should put it this way. No, not everyone sees opportunities. Of course, it isn't my fault they are too cynical or defeatist to properly avail themselves of assistance. While more than 3 million children are eligible for Medicaid yet remain unenrolled, it is somehow my fault they don't see opportunities in the same light.

If you're going to the emergency room for health care, you're a moron and no amount of government legislation or assistance is going to help you.

[Waragainstsleep]

A government run healthcare system faces the same kinds of problems as any government run service. The bottom line is when you work for a big, profit-driven corporation and you accidentally spill your coffee into the guts of a £1000000 MRI machine, you're going to get fired. At the very least. If you work for the government, its just "Oops, oh well, try not to do that again won't you? Now we'll just go buy a new one."

Put simply, when money is lost, there isn't any one person to get angry because you just cost them a bucket load of cash. Its worse again in the medical profession because both "victims" and juries will seek and award higher settlements for lawsuits when there is a big rich government to foot the bill.

I have nothing but respect and admiration for the NHS and the medical personnel who work under it. I consider it one of the noblest ideals ever put in place by any government that if you injure yourself or get sick in Britain, someone will patch you up without checking to see that your insurance will cover it first. Even if you aren't British.

The problems with the NHS have come from too much of the wrong kinds of interference. People who don't understand medicine at all being asked to legislate how medical services should be run. There are too many managers though this has improved a little in the last decade or so.

The government instead of protecting the NHS, or really trying to leverage its strengths simply undermines it and panders to idiotic members of the public who have no idea what they are talking about but seem to think it perfectly sensible that medical services should be built according to their opinions over those of qualified experts.

The government should have spent its time protecting the NHS from frivolous lawsuits, making the bureaucracy smaller and more efficient instead of massive and unwieldy. Instead it provided targets for hospitals and services to meet and decided the best thing was to put different hospitals and trusts in direct competition with each other to give the public more choice when the public should have either been grateful that it had free healthcare to begin with or gotten off its arses and paid for private care if it didn't like it.

I think the NHS should get drugs at reasonable prices from the big pharmaceutical companies instead of being charged ludicrous sums for certain drugs. refusal to do so should result in that company selling no more products of any kind in the UK until it gives in and offers the NHS a fair price. They get held to ransom frequently when it is they who should be able to do that to their vendors.
This is the way that the NHS should be run like a corporation, not giving it stupid targets to meet. How long before en enterprising NHS trust manager starts poisoning the locals with E. Coli because he has a quota to hit and there aren't enough cases otherwise?

I don't really like the way the NHS is now going where it will contract out various services to the private sector. This will only lead to corners being cut to boost profits and care will ultimately suffer. It just needs to be run properly, the medical staff must be listened to and the public for the most part should not. Personally I'm sick and tired of (pretty much every) government's refusal to ever tell a voter they are wrong and should simply shut up and go away.

/rant

[Athens]

Is there any other Government run systems in the western world like the NHS? As far as I know its the only one that is 100% government run. Im curious to compare if any one else does it.