Thanks!
So what are these really long ER wait times in UK and Canada I hear way more than the US?
Also what are these shortages of specialists and surgeons I keep hearing about in UK and Canada?
I hadn’t really thought about it much, so I looked it up. $918 here in Canberra, seriously discourages one to do it. I can see myself opt for “drive and hope” should push come to shove.
And, for some reason SA.AUS (last I looked) had decided that their standard ambulance insurance only covers in-state. If you’re from SA and need an ambulance on holiday in Q’land, you need private medical cover, or something else.
The money i get taxed for healthcare (which yes, it is quite a bit every month) is not for my healthcare.
It goes to pay for the healthcare of those who are elderly and retired, and those who can not afford healthcare.
Possibly i could use it when i get more elderly, maybe, that’s debatable.
To purchase healthcare for myself, yes i have to pay again, but what i paid the 1st time was not for me.
I don’t wanna be a repeater pencil, so forgive me if somebody else mentioned this. There is the litigious issue. Take the guy who fell off the bar stool. The old Mayberry RFD thing to do would be haul him out back, give him a once over for injuries, dunk his head in a pan of ice water, and send him home. That will work 99.999% of the time. But if it turns out the guy was having a stroke, you’ll get your tail feathers sued off. So, as the bartender, you call the ambulance so they can’t say you didn’t try and help.
Around a month ago I smashed my elbow; this was at night. The right arm hung useless and the broken bones scraped each other. The ambulance took a long time, but eventually I was in hospital and in the early morning had a 3-hour operation, with extra inserted metalware there. 2 nights in hospital with loads of drugs and now casts and fortnightly visits to the hospital.
I will not get any bill for any of these things.
So I’m grateful for the NHS in Britain.
:rolleyes:
Right. Because in all European countries, EMT work just for fun, like the doctors at the Hospital. (Hint: I Show my insurance Card, the Hospital bills the health insurance, everybody gets paid).
Between Christmas and New Year, I had an unexpected Grand Mal while in a Restaurant with friends. Ambulance was called, I was taken to a Hospital late at evening, and released the following day.
Guess how much I had to pay*? Come on guess?
For ambulance ride, getting a preventive solution, getting an EEG, being seen by a doctor, getting medicine, staying in a Hospital bed and breakfast and lunch.
20 Euros - fixed rate of 10 Euros per day.
- Though I walked out of the Hospital forgetting to stop at the cashier, so a week later I got a letter “You are late in paying your bill!”
European countries don’t exist?
There is this Thing called “Health insurance (Done properly)” that pays for things, in order that each Patient does not get hit with a big bill at all, just with a monthly affordable rate.
Actually, most European (= non-American) societies recognize and understand in General the Need for a Society to pay for commonly used infrastructures. There is no debate about “having a working health insurance”; there is a debate on “which procedures and diseases should be paid for, and which are eligible” - and that’s done based on experts opinion of severity of the issue, success rate of the Treatment etc.
Except for the many Horror stories of People who were innocently involved in an accident, received Treatment, and are now in deep debt, without ability to pay for further Treatment necessary for full recovery (and because not full recovered, unable to work, further complicating things), because for some reason the insurance of the car Driver who ran them over is not obliged to pay for the health Treatment of the victims.
Over here, full Treatment for recovery Comes first, and then the official health insurance in their own time can sue against the car Drivers insurance to recover the costs.
Ah well, it’s that funny American thinking - nothing is free because somewhere, somebody has to pay for it! Through taxes, which are THE HORROR! Free citizens are unfree if they are forced to pay taxes, much better to let People die horribly instead. (Or something similar that usually Comes up in threads like These. It’s like “Education isn’t free because somebody has to PAY TAXES for University, the Horror! Much better to let them run up five-figure debts!”)
This was featured rather extensivly on the News and on this board some years back: fire dept. was called to a rural housefire, after the “protection fee” had been introduced some time back in that area. Once the firefighters established that no neighbouring house was in danger, but that the house owner hadn’t paid, they stood around and watched the house burn down. The house owner wanted to pay the fee on the spot, but they refused, explicitly stating they wanted to make an example, because otherwise everybody would only pay in case of fire.
Police are free because where else are you issued Military-grade weapons and can shoot black People without being punished at all?
There are private prisons; and prisoners are put to work there as new “slavery under different Name”. A movie was made recently 13th (film) - Wikipedia showing the development of the 13th amendment (forbidding slavery) to a System of specifically putting blacks in prison and to work on chain gangs in the south, prison factories in the rest.
There’s also prison for debt, just like in the times of Charles Dickens! And fees get added on top nilly-willy, for paying late (because you are too broke to pay the first fee…), again targeting mostly poor People.
That’s only after the Major shift from Obamacare, though. Before - and now if AHCA = Trumpcare passes the Senate, too, at least 28 mil. Americans will become uninsured.
Obamacare fixed insurances that denied People because of pre-existing conditions, or People who had insurance plans that didn’t cover anything, or …
Here A Zero B.S. Guide To American Healthcare | Cracked.com are numbers and Graphs about the real Situation of US healthcare.
The guy didn’t offer to pay the price of fighting a fire on the spot. He agreed to pay the price for a potential possible fire. That’s far, far less than the price of an actual fire. Given the system as set up, the fire company had no choice but to refuse, because if they hadn’t, then they’d quickly find themselves unable to fight any fires at all.
Which is not to say that that was a good outcome. It wasn’t. But the fault lies entirely with the people who set up the system, not at all with the firefighters.
The Thing is, with a working Health insurance, and a Population that mostly understands how solidarity works, there is no Need to visit the ER because … People are insured enough to go to the Doctor instead for normal Problems! Without paying 500 or 2000 $ copay!
ERs are for emergency, and most People understand that abusing the System would hurt them all, because we all pay for it, and there’s no Need to abuse it (except if you are a jerk).
Because as has been state in previous discussions, the ER in the US are obligated only to treat life-threatening emergencies without asking for Money first. Once the Situation is stabilized, but the Patient not insured, the ER is finished. Further continuing Treatment, like for disease as COPD, Needs a normal doctor = an insurance.
If Roomie doesn’t have a good enough one, he’s … left on his own.
Except if you live where not enough doctors accept your insurance, or you just don’t get a knee surgery because your insurance doesn’t cover it, but caps at 2000 $.
Here are some Facts not myths 5 Myths About Canadian Health Care about Canadian healthcare.