Sorry that the options aren’t absolutely complete but I had to limit them at some point. If you feel you need further elaboration on your selection you can do so below. Thanks
Wow. At the time I opened this, UHC is 8 for 8.
What about people who don’t live in the USA or a UHC country?
You’re right. There’s not really an option for that. If that applies to you or another poster, I guess they can comment here with the one of the three options presented above.
The lack of UHC is the main thing that’s keeping me from moving back to the US (where my three children live). And I don’t see that the new bill (which I expect to be thrown out by the Supreme Court anyway) comes even close to what we have in Canada with no copay and no deductible. I have paid for it nearly all my working life and now expect to benefit (although, to be sure, I would prefer not to have to benefit from it).
Not only would it be a great idea for a healthy country, think of all the jobs they’d open up what with all the death panels and such!
All kidding aside, I think it would be a great change for the US, but I do fear the way it could be mucked up by our government.
I voted the bottom option, but would note that we can top-up our UHC cover with private insurance if we wish which means we don’t fully rely on UHC.
(This is in the UK)
You can, but I know exceedingly few people who do that. In any case, private insurers here are liable to bang you straight back to the NHS if you get really, seriously ill and cost money.
Canada - Bottom option.
I tried tying something else in here, but no matter how I try to word it, it sounds like a debate-starter. So I’ll leave that for another thread, of which there have been many.
That surprises me. I would say that the majority of people I knew in when I lived in the UK had additional private insurance. I am certainly not saying that the majority of UK citizens do - far from it - but it is common for middle-class people with professional jobs. My company provided private health insurance, for example.
That’s different, though. My employer provides health insurance. I wouldn’t use it ever, I didn’t even know about it at the time when I took the job, and if I had known it would have been at best neutral as an incentive. I don’t want it. If I had an option I would decline to have it. As edinbourgeoise points out, you get taken to an NHS hospital in an NHS ambulance if you’re really ill anyway: and I mean straight out of the private hospital to publicly-funded A&E. Most health care is provided in NHS buildings by staff who at least also, if not exclusively, work for the NHS. So, yes, many people I know have private health insurance through their employers; but I know a lot of people who feel the same way about it as I do. And, for the sake of fairness, a lot of people who use it as much as possible to avoid paying for minor things. I’ve never yet known anyone who’d used it for anything serious or genuinely life-threatening. I also (to the best of my knowledge) don’t know anyone at all who chooses themselves to pay for their own personal health insurance. I am a “middle-class” professional (a teacher), and so are most of my friends (in various fields). Friends I have who are in a lower income or education bracket can’t generally afford to pay for private healthcare on top of what they pay for the NHS, and why would they? There’s no need.
This was a no brainer:
I live in a country with UHC and I would prefer a UHC style health care system.
I want nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of system like my American friends have to put up with. Never. Ever.
It would have been interesting to have poll options solely for those people who have experience of both UHC and US-style:
- I have experience of US and UHC and prefer US.
- I have experience of US and UHC and prefer UHC.
I am in the latter category.
As I said in the thread by Starving Artist in The Pit, I’m a Canadian and like our UHC. Yes, it has its problems (wait times in particular), but I absolutely do not want what you folks are condemned to south of the border.
We can get supplemental private insurance as well, but I get the impression it is different in concept from the private insurance Brits can get in their system. Private insurance here is for stuff that is not covered at all by provincial plans (prescriptions, dentist, ambulance rides, chiropractor, etc.).
I’m a nursing student (almost done my second of four years of school) in Canada, and I’ve been pondering where I want to work when I graduate. I know a few of students who are thinking of working in the United States or other countries. I think I would never be willing to work in the US since I would have to be covered under their system. Granted if I worked as a nurse in the US I would most likely have employer-covered healthcare, but I still wouldn’t trust it - given that I have a chronic, permanent health condition that will likely require expensive treatment off and on over the years. If I ever work outside of Canada, it would probably be somewhere else with some type of UHC.
Me too.
BUPA has 4 million subscribers for its NHS supplementary services - that is, health insurance, as opposed to life, dental and so on. I don’t know what your definition of “exceedingly few” is, but it’s not “one fifteenth of the population” in my book.
ETA: That’s not even including the other providers, like Aviva, Pru Health, and so on, since I can’t find figures for them.
Me too.
Ditto.
***In theory, ***I would love to live in a country in which the government doesn’t have to be involved with people’s health care. But in reality there are too many things that can, and do, go wrong. Over the years I have found that if something looks good in theory, but turns out bad in reality, it’s a crappy theory.