Thread inspired by this fascinating article.
Did you receive health care in the U.S. and another country? How did the experiences compare?
No less than I expected, but then I’m a dreadful socialist at heart. I do hope there’s universal health care here before I die 
I’ve lived in both Canada and the US.
To be fair, I was a teenager in Canada and an adult in the US. So I’ve had far more serious health issues in the US than I had in Canada. However, I did have experience with adult family members undergoing medical care in Canada.
Having said that, here’s my take: Quality of care was excellent in both places. I don’t really have a concern about that either way.
The payment system is another story. It was a great sense of peace in Canada for our family that we didn’t have to worry about health insurance or medical expenses in general. We each had our Medicare card, similar to a credit card, and presented it whenever we needed medical care, and it was all taken care of. Here in the US I’m constantly concerned about whether my insurance will continue. Especially now, since I was layed off a couple of months ago and am on COBRA.
I’m posting here mainly to point out that there is a direct link to the article
Cancer patient died alone in hotel room after hospital sent him there to free up beds off of that loving tribute to the NHS. No wonder the Daily Mail isn’t really taken seriously in the UK.
I notice a big part of the woman’s complaint is that the nurses were nicer in the UK than they were in the US. That seems like a goofy basis to judge the payment system on. I have worked in US hospitals and most of the nurses I’ve worked with have been very good about paging me to tell me when a patient has a problem so we can try to solve it promptly. Perhaps since she isn’t from here she didn’t realize that there are systems in place for lodging a complaint with the patient advocate if you feel you’re not being treated well in a hospital.
I have no first hand experience with the health care options in other countries. But I posted a story here around two years ago titled Seven month to fix a toothache
It was an emergency ER visit I took my wife to. The visit was fine. The care was fine. The billing was a nightmare. It took hundreds of phone calls, letters to and from various doctor’s offices and collection agencies and several visits to hospitals to rectify the problem which, at its heart was simply about moving code X to code Y so insurance would process the claim.
I have no clue how much it all cost in manhours for everyone to solve it, but none of it had anything to do with health care.
I don’t take the Daily Mail seriously either. If its a crime story I always google the name for a more legit source.
I don’t know if the story I linked is true or not. It’s just one persons comments on two different health care systems.
I thought it might be interesting to get first hand experiences about the U.S. and other health care systems from the Dope.
Yes.
New Zealand vs. the USA
Moved to New Zealand for work and 3 weeks later my wife had a cerebral hemorrhage.
Admitting: NZ is better. What admitting? You just show up in their ER and you don’t have to talk to 2 or 3 people and fill out voluminous paperwork. You are there, you are admitted. They take your medical history, not: address history, next of kin, HIIPA disclosure forms, benefits assignment forms, record release forms, NRO, MPA, CBA disclosure or any of the other crap that we have to deal with in the US.
Facilities: no question, USA is better. She was in “ward room” with 8 other patients just like you see in the movies from the 1940’s.
Caring by staff: NZ is far superior. More and more-qualified caregivers per patient than in the US. A lady that brought books and magazines around on a cart, another lady that served tea every morning and afternoon. Real degree’d RN’s were on the floor, not LVN’s or NA’s.
Medical knowledge of treating Dr’s: Push. NZ guys were very good. We were in the capital in the main hospital–but I was also treated by a Dr. in the suburbs and she was every bit as good as a GP in the states.
Medical Care: NZ, but it is a long story. What she needed done, could not be done in NZ. Anywhere in NZ. After two weeks, they told us she would have to go to Sydney to be treated. Before I could open my mouth, they said that they would arrange for a medical flight for her to go to Sydney, and I could ride with her. When I asked how much this was going to cost–they looked at me like I had three heads and said of course NZ would pay for it all.
Technology: no question, USA was better. Turns out, LA and NYC were the only choices for us to ultimately get what she needed [Gamma Knife for those that know]. So we wound up getting her treated in LA.
Pharmacy: you get the script from the Dr. You take it to the Pharmacy, they fill it, you walk out. No talk of generic vs. patented brand. No pharmacy clerk or pharmacy tech. has to call and see if you are covered and what your co-pay is. It is covered. Period.
Release: You are released with self-care and follow-up instructions. No billing clerk or billing supervisor or other clerk to deal with. It’s covered.
Finally,
All of the waiting list crap you hear about regarding treatment in socialized medicine systems is with regard to elective surgeries is just that, crap. You tear cartilage in your knee and it is sore–ok, it may take you 8 months to get that scoped and corrected under a national system. You want it done sooner? Fine, go to a private hospital and pay for it yourself. My [Kiwi] boss’s wife did this. However, it cost her as much for her entire surgery and stay in 1997 that I paid for my deductible in 1982 for the same procedure. She did it because she did not want to miss tennis season in NZ.
Last add
As in Europe, you find many more female Dr.'s than male. Most males go into business or law, because that is how you make money, not in medicine.
If you have never experienced this, you have no idea how FUBAR’d our system is.
I’m no fan of the Daily Mail but that article you link to is fairly sober and reasonable. It was normal procedure (a direct copy of similar schemes in the USA) one that is well liked by patients and hospital alike. The patient died of a catastrophic reaction to an infection and it was recorded as an accidental death.
Believe me, the Daily Mail would not shy from having a go at the NHS but this is certainly
not that and doesn’t read as a hatchet job or a huge criticism.
I lived for one year in London, and found the NHS to be preferable in just about every way to the HMO that I have in the US. In my experience, the UK was better because the waits for doctors was shorter, referrals to specialists was seamless, there was less paperwork, it was easier to get prescriptions, and the out of pocket costs were minimal. Just one example: I got some travel vaccination in the US that needed a follow-up when I was in London… I think it was Hep B, but I can’t remember for certain.
I do remember that I had to pay a couple hundred dollars in the US because a travel-related jab was viewed by my insurance company as being about as medically necessary as a boob job. In the UK, I might have paid five pounds or so for the exact same vaccine.
No direct experience but I recommend the book "The Healing of America. by T. R. Reid. Here is a review.
I went to the best hospital in a Cebu, Philippines for stress-induced insomnia. There was no waiting- they saw a foreigner and thought “this guy has money, we’ll serve him post haste”. There were natives waiting for service, but no one looked in serious condition. Saw a young doc who really knew his business. He gave me a scrip for something I had never heard of before which got me 6 hours of sleep a day until I returned to the US. Total cost including the drugs was $21. There was no paperwork.
In the US that would have cost $500.
If you have Netflix streaming there’s a great episode of Frontline: Sick Around the World which compares the US to Germany, Switzerland, The UK, Japan, and Taiwan.
What I took from it: Biggest US problems are the wasteful bureaucracy of insurance companies, doctors make too much, and we hate socialism.
That’s a very thorough and fair comparision. I have only a few things to add about the NZ system. We have a small population, just over 4 million spread out over a fairly wide area so there are some pretty large variations between areas. In smaller provincial towns a lot of procedures just can’t be done, so patients need to be shipped around to the larger centres.
The health system budget is pretty huge, and a few areas are in danger of having to cut services due to budget blowouts.
You didn’t mention ACC (the Accident Compensation Corporation). It’s essentially a universal injury insurance system. If you suffer injury due to an accident you can get 80% of your wages covered while you recover. Some get this for life following irrecoverable head injuries and the like. It’s funded out of a levy on wages and salaries, car registration and a slice of the petrol tax. Probably not relevant in your wife’s situation though. ACC also cover other recovery costs. When I ruptured my Achilles ACC offered to reimburse me for all the taxis I needed to and from work but I couldn’t be bothered with the paper work…
By and large I’m very happy with our system, I’ve never had to compare it with the US, but I’ll be sure to load up on travel insurance if I ever visit!
re: * “but I’ll be sure to load up on travel insurance if I ever visit!”*
I have a Q for you.
I know that Canada reimburses citizens for some of their care expenses in the US, does NZ do the same?
I went to a clinic in Russia when I got really sick, everyone was very nice and patient with my bad Russian, and no one really knew how to give me a bill so they just told me to go home. I bought them some chocolates and that seemed to be a good answer.
My wife got dengue fever in Aceh Indonesia and needed blood that night. I had to drive around Aceh, coerce people with her blood type to go with me to the Red Crescent, get drained and then give the blood to my officed assistant who sped over to her clinic with each bag as it was ready. The hospital had cats walking around the halls, no air or fans and no screens on the windows so if you opened a window, swarms of bugs came in. I had to stay up all night and watch the blood transfusion and when it was empty go wake up the nurse to change the bag. Everything had to be cash and if you ran out, so did your treatment. It was one of the dirtiest places I have ever spent the night and believe me, I have done some traveling. The next day, we got on a plane to Malaysia where I checked her into a hospital that was nicer than a 4 star hotel and my insurance card took care of everything.
Can’t compare to the US but these are some of my experiences in the Australian system.
Most people who are in the middle income bracket and above have some form of health insurance, which the Govt. encourages as a way to take some strain off the public system.
Essentially Medicare (public) is for emergencies and elective surgery if you don’t mind waiting for months (or years if you’re unlucky) for a procedure.
Private insurance covers elective surgery that you can get done in a private hospital with your choice of doctor etc and in a shorter time frame. It can also cover some or all of the costs of smaller things like dental checks, optometrist visits, physiotherapy etc.
Most things tend to be a mix.
A few examples: last year I needed to get my appendix out. The ambulance ride cost about $700 which was covered by my health insurance. The actual operation was done under the public system - didn’t cost me a thing. If I didn’t have insurance the ambulance costs would have had to have been paid by me as a lump sum a few months after the fact.
About 7 years ago I got my tonsils removed. Public system: the wait time was about 18 months to get it done. I went private, visited a specialist and was booked in for an op. within a month. Insurance covered most of the costs (I think I paid the first $500).
Standard doctors visit is around $65. You get about 1/2 of that back with the Medicare rebate.
There are different levels of insurance you can buy but for my family it costs about $90 a month to cover four of us at the 2nd highest level of cover.
It’s not a perfect system by any means especially for those on lower incomes as things can still get expensive or take a long time to happen.
I don’t think so, obviously it won’t come up as often as far fewer New Zealanders travel to the US than Canadians would so there are less instances. So we NZers are left to our own devices. Personally I think you’re a fool to travel overseas without insurance cover - even if you’re healthy you run the risk of accidents etc. Hell I’ll load up for a week long trip to Aussie - it’s only about $40 or so from memory.
I completely agree with this - the exception being if you’re from a European Union country and are travelling to another one, because your home country’s system covers you there even if they don’t (so if I’m visiting France the cost of any health care is covered by the UK NHS). It’s one of the legal parities that exists to allow free movement of labour, and in fact it’s the same with a lot of benefits too, you can use job seeker’s allowance to look for work in another country in the EU.
I’ve never required an overnight stay, but I’ve been treated in hospitals in Germany (an ambulance ride and stitches), Croatia (five days of antibiotic injections), and Hungary (various ailments–I spent over five years there). The service in all these countries was more than adequate, but I can’t really compare them honestly with the US, as all my treatments were minor, in the scheme of things.
I haven’t dealt with the HC system of another country personally but I dealt with it indirectly through my grandmother:
About seven years ago, my grandmother was vacationing in Germany when some health issues came up and she was diagnosed with a terminal disease by the German doctors (keep in mind that with all of this I’m going to be speaking in generalities because I’m still not entirely sure of the whole situation - I was quite a bit younger at the time and far more ignorant than I am now). There was some crucial surgery that would’ve probably saved her life that the German doctors were adament that she had done in Germany; to my knowledge, the issue of how she was going to pay for it never came up. Still, her idiot German relatives forced her to return to the US; once here, the insurance companies and doctors kept dicking her around, and she spent the last few months of her life pumping tons of money into some naturalistic health clinic bullshit because conventional medicine just wasn’t available to her.
Needless to say, I HATE health care in the United States; there’s too much fucking bureaucracy amongst the insurance companies and the physicians make too much gawddamned money. Like another poster stated above me, I hope that I live to see the day when the US wakes the fuck up and embraces universal health care.