US Health Care System compared with British Health Care

[rareboy]

I'm not surprised.

I've had extensive experience with both US and Canadian Hospitals.

At the end of the day the care was no better or worse in one system than the other, the facilities were no better or worse and the overall outcomes in Canada are better with lower case costs per capita than the US.

 

[Jack Springer]

Maybe if the lady, whoever she is, had gone to a regular hospital in the USA her experience would have been better.

I'm not rich enough to afford private, exclusive health care in a private Jewish hospital like her -- I doubt that most, if any of us here are that rich or well-connected.

After having experienced many of my parent's stays in the hospital a major part of the experience is the attitude of the patient in regard to how much a part they play in their own treatment. If you are not aware of what's happening or do not have concerned relatives, a patients stay at a hospital will not always go well.

Bottom line -- it appears the british lady liked the british system before she left for the USA -- maybe she should have stayed in the UK and never lived in the USA.

 

[looseliam]

I've dealt with healthcare all over the world and for the most part it's all the same. I been to the best hospitals and I've certainly been to the worst.

I am also tired of people like that lady bitching about cost. It's not anyone's fault but your own you chose a PPO. If she had an HMO, I'm sure her out-of-pocket would have been in the hundreds of dollars. It's the "oh, but I like that doctor" mentality. Listen, most people are no more equipped to evaluate a doctor than I am equipped for deep-sea exploration.

Overall the article reeks of someone who likes what she likes and also likes to complain (not unlike myself).

 

[gsdx]

At the end of the day the care was no better or worse in one system than the other, the facilities were no better or worse and the overall outcomes in Canada are better with lower case costs per capita than the US.

After Sarah Burke's accident in Park City, Utah, and her 9-day hospital stay before she died as a result of her injuries, her family was hit with a bill for a half-million dollars. My mother was in hospital for almost 2 months before she died. It didn't cost us a penny.

 

[Kulindahr]

Either I or a member of my family have been to five different hospitals in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area. Two of them match up to the quality described in the U.K. hospital; one of those actually surpasses it.

Not surprisingly to me, the two which match up are religiously affiliated and run: one Catholic, the other Seventh Day Adventist. One nice thing about the Catholic one is that when my brother was there, and my dad was there, if you couldn't get the attention of medical staff (rare), you could always get the attention of the chaplain or his staff -- and believe me, when a priest listened and decided you needed medical staff, they arrived before you could finish saying a "Hail Mary".

The outstanding thing about the Adventist Medical Center, what puts it over the top, is that they have volunteers everywhere. When my mom went in, we were met by volunteers. She was guided where she needed to go, by a volunteer. While she waited for the intake interview, the volunteer stayed, ready to fetch tea or whatever. While a nurse took blood for tests, a volunteer was there to hold mom's hand or whatever. While the anesthesiologist did her thing, a volunteer sat and chatted. The moment mom awoke after surgery, a smiling volunteer was there to see if there was anything at all she wanted.

And while my mom was in tests, and then in surgery, volunteers checked on me regularly with updates and to see if there was anything I needed or wanted. At least every hour the nurse was out to tell me how things were going. They were amazing. When I commented, the nurse told me that in their approach to medical care, caring for the family is part of caring for the patient.

They even asked if there was anything Bammer needed!


At the other end of the spectrum, I sat in a triage line at the ER for nearly two hours, in pain and near-terror -- and I was in the "urgent" line. No one checked on me, and the only time when I got any attention was when near-terror morphed into a full-scale panic attack, whereupon I got a pillow to hug and a big mug of hot chocolate.



One thought about the article: it might mean more if both hospitals weren't effectively elite.

 

[Kulindahr]

HMOs have gotten a very bad reputation for some reason.

Partly because of the whole "in network" thing. I've had to drive three hours to get to an "in network" doctor when there was one who'd have been just fine only forty minutes away. And I've had to wait an extra hour at the hospital because HMO approval procedures meant doctors had to ask permission to do just about anything but take my temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. I could have lost an eye at one point if the doctor hadn't told the staff to lie to the HMO people, he was going to work anyway.

 

[Benvolio]

I wonder how happy the British would if they had not had the benefit of all the new drugs and medical devices developed by the US system. Who will be happy when development slows to a near stop with Obama care?

 

[gsdx]

Who will be happy when development slows to a near stop with Obama care?

That's going to put a damper on the class action lawsuits. What will the lawyers do then?

 

[looseliam]

HMOs have gotten a very bad reputation for some reason.

I don't know why. Granted it can be a bit of a hassle going to my PCP to get a referral. Let's say I need an endocrinologist? How am I to pick one from some big book? I'd be calling my PCP anyway.

It may be all FUD from the insurance companies to get people to select PPOs. I dunno.

 

[joshj50]

I have lived in both the UK and US.
I can honestly say the standard of care in the US is far superior.
I currently have an open access HMO which means I can self refer myself to a consultant/specialist as long as he is in my network. That said I would never self refer myself to a cardiologist if I was having chest pain, my first stop would be to my PCP or the ER.

I have been with the same PCP for 10 years and if I needed to see him now, I am confident he would meet me at his office or stop by my house (edit, its 6.00PM on a Saturday)

From experience I am acutely aware that if your issue is not an emergency you will be on a never ending waiting list in the UK. So if you are sick you should pray that it is damn near life threatening.

As a former smoker my PCP likes to see X rays of my lungs annually, I simply walk into the Diagnostics center after I have seen him, show them my script, have a chest x ray taken and by the next morning he is viewing my films. Typically I get a phone call that afternoon with the results. The same with blood work, his nurse draws blood and within 48 hours she is calling me with the results and she then emails me a copy for my records.

I am not looking forward to when everyone will be forced to purchase health insurance. I know of many people now who don't currently have health insurance, the minute they are forced to purchase it they are damn well going to use it, I foresee packed doctor's offices of people who haven't seen a doctor in years. The system will become clogged, I wish they could have staggered the requirement better, for example 50-65 year old people must purchase a policy prior to 2014 and the 40-49 year olds purchase a policy prior to 2015 and so on and so on. Was not my decision though so I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens

 

[winterknight]

I'm still astonished that people think anything printed in the Daily Fail is in any way reflective of reality.

I haven't read the article, because I refuse to give their website the hits.

 

[lambdaboy]

My partner and I have been in the UK for 10 years and now have dual citizenship. The health care is fantastic. Tax rates for the wealthy are a little high but for the average not much more than the U.S.A> and salaries are higher. When I think what I paid in teh states and that this is free and excellent I am never going back. Also when we retire inside the EU Italy, France etc we have the ame fred medical.

In the U.S> right wing idiots call it socialism. Remids me of an old str8 guy we knew whio said marriage is for men and omen to which my partner answered you could call it fucking Loraine we just want the same rigth as you and your wife.

 

[Kulindahr]

Josh, I don't have any comment to offer on the first part of your post, but I can tell you that the quoted part of your post is pure marmalade.

My own Insurance company, which is a major insurance company, has had such a problem getting people to do preventative care that they have implemented a type of "punishment" for those who don't do it. This punishment consists of a sharp rise in premiums if all the steps aren't followed to the letter.

Put another way, they have to force people to go to the doctor.

The reason for this is that even though we have insurance, we still have the copays, and the deductibles. Not everybody has $1500 just lying around the house to cover the deductible, Joshua.

Definitely. There will be some few who do as he says, but mostly they won't be bothered or would rather spend the money on beer or a movie.

My coverage has made a few measures in the same direction, Johann -- get a physical every other year, or else, and since raising premiums on people doesn't work (most are covered by their churches), your copays and deductibles go up. Past fifty, it's a physical every year. And they added a carrot: no co-pay for the physical, though it does come out of the deductible.

I have coverage for many things I can't afford to use. There's a work-up my docs have wanted me to get for years, but my share would come to a month and a half's income. That's my concern about 'Obamacare' -- it will just require people to pay for coverage they can't use, meaning it's a hand-out to the insurance companies. Four annual visits, including a physical, should be free, or they won't get used anyway.

 

[Kulindahr]

^The trouble, Kulindahr, is that many people, especially if they're younger than 40, don't feel that they need to take those steps that my insurance requires.

The lowest deductible we can take is $750, and that's still a lot of money, especially for people who're making a pittance already. And then after that you still have to pay the co-pay.

But the point I'm making is that the other poster's complaints about overusing doctors really are pure marmalade. To be honest with you, I think he's parroting Republican talking points, without knowing anything about the reality of the situation.

Here's some reality: when I was living in a WW II era apartment, having cats so I didn't have to worry about mice and rats while I slept, there was a family with three kids, and two got very sick. They went to the county clinic but couldn't get help because they had insurance, so they went to the doctor but would have had to wait two days, so they got sent to the emergency room where they got a quick look-and-poke, but couldn't come back because they couldn't afford the insurance co-pay ($50) and deductible ($750). So their kid got very, very sick, with possible lifelong consequences, precisely because they had insurance -- if they'd had none, they could have gotten ongoing care at the county clinic and made some further visits to the ER.

I also knew, and currently know, people whose insurance only covers so many visits in a year -- so they never go, because they're afraid they'll need the visit later for something really serious.

 

[bullwing413]

1. Hospital charges are very different from what hospitals actually get paid in the US. The charges are high due to a very complex and totally screwed up system that has to do with Medicare rules and the way the insurers negotiate contracts and discounts. The average payment is about 30-40% of charges but it can be much less. Medicaid usually doesn't cover costs, Medicare just about does, and private insurers vary.

2. About 60% of hospital costs are labor. Americans make more than their British or Canadian counterparts in nursing, technical fields, etc.

I offer these observations neither as a defense nor attack on either system, just an explanation.

 

[joshj50]

Josh, I don't have any comment to offer on the first part of your post, but I can tell you that the quoted part of your post is pure marmalade.

My own Insurance company, which is a major insurance company, has had such a problem getting people to do preventative care that they have implemented a type of "punishment" for those who don't do it. This punishment consists of a sharp rise in premiums if all the steps aren't followed to the letter.

Put another way, they have to force people to go to the doctor.

The reason for this is that even though we have insurance, we still have the copays, and the deductibles. Not everybody has $1500 just lying around the house to cover the deductible, Joshua.

Poppycock, standard co pay for your PCP is a mere $20. I have talked to countless people who refuse to purchase insurance until they are forced to but are already making lists of what they need treatment for once they have that policy in hand, it will be chaos the first few years.

 

[Kulindahr]

Poppycock, standard co pay for your PCP is a mere $20. I have talked to countless people who refuse to purchase insurance until they are forced to but are already making lists of what they need treatment for once they have that policy in hand, it will be chaos the first few years.

I think many of them misunderstand insurance. Once they see that even with 85% coverage, which is excellent, they'll be forking over that $1500 or more -- and they'll get bitter, and back down. All that will happen is a few more people will actually get covered, and billions will pour into insurance company coffers.

 

[joshj50]

I think many of them misunderstand insurance. Once they see that even with 85% coverage, which is excellent, they'll be forking over that $1500 or more -- and they'll get bitter, and back down. All that will happen is a few more people will actually get covered, and billions will pour into insurance company coffers.

I don't know what type of policy you carry but the way mine works is as follows:

To see my PCP the co pay is $20, 99% of the time I don't need to go further than his office, if a prescription is needed and it is available in generic it is normally free.

If I suffered a minor injury such as a sprain or once I had strep throat and could not wait until Monday I can visit an Urgent Care to get some antibiotics or the sprain wrapped, the co pay is $50 only

If I was seriously injured and I needed to visit the ER and I could have someone take me the copay will only be $100. If I required an ambulance that is free.

As I have repeatedly said I have spoken to countless people who will be very willing to fork over a mere $20 to go get the peace of mind I currently enjoy in regards to my health. Even if they are diagnosed with high cholesterol the most they will be out of pocket is $20 co pay for PCP, and a few dollars a month for a statin. What will follow for them is a great sense of ease and peace of mind. My PCP has already expanded in anticipation of the deluge of the newly insured. If they have to buy something they are surely going to use it.

Currently I have no wait time for nearly any procedure whether it be a simple X ray of full body MRI. I know of family members and friends in the UK who have been waiting 6 months plus just to get their films taken, never mind an actual diagnosis. I for one find that appalling. I have one unfortunate friend who is in chronic pain from her back, it took 1.5 years to see the relevant consultant and another 7 months for her to get the tests he requested. All they do is prescribe narcotics to her to deal with the pain but no actual surgery or intervention of the root cause.

 

[kallipolis]

Currently I have no wait time for nearly any procedure whether it be a simple X ray of full body MRI. I know of family members and friends in the UK who have been waiting 6 months plus just to get their films taken, never mind an actual diagnosis. I for one find that appalling. I have one unfortunate friend who is in chronic pain from her back, it took 1.5 years to see the relevant consultant and another 7 months for her to get the tests he requested. All they do is prescribe narcotics to her to deal with the pain but no actual surgery or intervention of the root cause.

Not possible, nor plausible.

Bullshit!

 

[joshj50]

Not possible, nor plausible.

Bullshit!

It is absolutely true, when I lived there it took me over one year to have a tiny mole removed from my shoulder, the procedure took about 10 minutes, but took one year from GP visit to actually having the damn thing removed. Now that I think of it I was supposed to receive a follow up letter informing me of pathology results, whether it was cancerous or not, I assume it was not because I received no such letter!

I am not saying that the Euro system is all bad, I know some very hard working medical professionals there but I just feel the US way is better as long as you are committed to maintaining a good health insurance policy. If you can't afford one there is always Medicaid and that is just as good standard of care as the care I receive.