It amazes me when I read about US healthcare.A question for you USAers.

So I get the gist that many USAers hate Obama care and think it is worse than what you had before.
So If you had the chance would you pay more income tax to have an NHS type socialized medical care? or would you prefer to have OB care or how it used to be?.

This is how I think.




So how can you fix it? or are you happy with OB care?.
Heck I just don't get it lol.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
So If you had the chance would you pay more income tax to have an NHS type socialized medical care?

NO. I would prefer that the government spend WISER and that way no one's taxes would go up. There is no reason for taxes to be this high and for healthcare to be so screwed up. 85% of Americans were fine with healthcare the way it was before Obama screwed up the whole system. Now it's over priced and doesn't work and a lot of folks lost what they liked before.

No reason to raise taxes. Just spend wiser.

From my understanding...

Obamacare is like NHS-lite...


A sort of socialist step towards free healthcare via tax system.



But I dunno, supporting the health of 350 million is quite different from 70 million.


Insurance may be a more cost effective measure for such a large population.

originally posted by: FlyersFan
85% of Americans were fine with healthcare the way it was before Obama screwed up the whole system.

How about the 50 million or so people in the 15%, were they fine as well?

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

It costs us 115 billion and is one of the biggest employers in the world 1.3 million people, I can see that If you did it in the USA it would cost much more.
Let me put it another way would you pay 3 cents more in tax in the dollar to have an NHS style system with no insurance companies?.

originally posted by: grainofsand
How about the 50 million or so people in the 15%, were they fine as well?

That's when you set up a system for the 15% and not destroy the existing system for the 85% who were happy. Forcing people to buy an expensive product they don't want and that doesn't work well ... and falsely calling it a 'tax' ... and at the same time lining the pockets of the medical industry and big pharma = bad bad bad.

a reply to: boymonkey74 Regardless of what you are told...you can get treated at a hospital. There are free clinics, programs out the nose for anyone if they just look. Socialized medicine does not look appealing at all and the uncountable illegals will reap most of the rewards. I hear of those whom just love their countries health care system, and then find out they are in the US for treatment...mostly from Canada, but many others as well. To the working class of Americans we are offered insurance at high prices, but get reasonable care (hopefully everyone), but what we see is few who will pay insane prices, much higher than now, and many who pay little or nothing but get all the time in the world to see a doctor cause they want free meds to entertain them on their boring non working careers. It is not a have/have not situation...it is a producer/ non producer thing. We were lied to in the beginning, and being lied to today...how are we to get excited about this? I met a person recently who has no job, drives a nicer car than I have, has loads of free time, gets free anti this and anti that meds...brags that they have the system down....now times that by 100 million.....ACA looks like crap to us working producers......

a reply to: grainofsand

Many of them were. A lot of the uninsured were young, healthy people who had the means to buy insurance and chose not to because, being young and healthy, they felt they didn't need it. They were basically gambling against their continued good health.

I'm not sure what the true number of needy uninsured are because that number was not released, but it was much smaller than the number of uninsured.

Of the number who were left, some of those would have qualified for programs like Medicaid or CHiP but had not applied.

So basically, Obamacare was passed and stripped health insurance from a great many people for a minority of a minority.

Just appears to me the only winners are the insurance companies...not the people them.

a reply to: boymonkey74

Personally I would pal.

Love the NHS.
Sure Americans would to.

But the transition would be difficult...

& the insurance companies in the U.S. are power players.


I don't know how they'd switch systems to be honest.

originally posted by: boymonkey74
Just appears to me the only winners are the insurance companies...not the people them.

Ultimately not even them, the numbers have been run. Obamacare is unsustainable as it is. The insurance companies bought in because of the mandate, but the way the regs are written and the policies are mandated, they cannot survive. It will take time, but they will go out of business.

This is why you are seeing the rate hikes.

The whole bill is designed as a Trojan horse to create a new crisis that will more or less force Single Payer. The people are supposed to forget that Obamacare FUBARed the works and blame the insurance industries, and we are all supposed to be dumb enough to scream for government to save us with single payer.

There is a Tides Foundation video floating around that explains this. The original Obamacare idea was to have a public option that would help slow the decay enough to make it a 10 to 15 year death spiral, but I think the whole is coming undone rather more quickly than anticipated. Then the Gruber video series didn't help either.

I suppose you might call it the insurance company bribe, but ultimately, they will be out of business.

a reply to: boymonkey74

The system should run like Germany, a co-op that eliminates all the profiteers.

The US system is all about corporations preying on humans as captive customers, not really keeping them healthy.

With the TPP, I'm sure there will be further captivation of the "customers". It is shocking how ignorant and malicious Americans can be toward their fellow human. Can't feel whole unless your success comes at someone else's loss. There is a hatred of the "poor" that's as deep as the Pacific Ocean.

a reply to: ketsuko

Thanks for the reply, it's apples and oranges at the end of the day, and I am not here to criticise the US system, but personally, I like a system that has stitched me back together a few times and the only question I was asked when I woke up was "what is your name and address?", payment for treatment and drugs is not an issue as a British citizen.

No system is perfect, but I am happy that a percentage of my taxes funds our system, so no matter what job you have, or insurance cover, or money in the bank, the NHS will fix you free at the point of need if you are a British citizen, or an EU national who is domiciled here.
That is a point of concern to me though, we have many examples of EU nationals moving here because the NHS offers treatment which their nation does not. Another story though...I shall not go off-topic, lol.

...oh, and there is nothing stopping us having private healthcare either. A couple of my friends do and get appointments maybe a couple of weeks sooner at the local private hospital than I would on the NHS. I've considered it before, but I've always experienced quality service from the NHS so I have never felt the need to take a private policy out.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs


But I dunno, supporting the health of 350 million is quite different from 70 million.

Would be like an NHS but for the whole of Europe with roughly the same population as the US. EHS....

I think it would be easier if each state had its own NHS like health service with its own budget rather than one huge one responsible for 350 million people.

a reply to: Boeing777

The NHS have trusts which are regional so it would be similar but much more massive.

a reply to: boymonkey74

It's simple, I would abolish insurance companies, all of them completely absolutely equivocally. Then I would charge a 10% income tax for healthcare. The health providers would not bill the customers, but would bill the state, and the state would pay them. In this manner the health care providers can fight with the state, and whomever has money and elects to go to a none state reimbursed hospital can. The non state though may not bill the state for anything and as such must receive revenue directly from the customer. In this manner of you have money, you do what you want and all the rest are covered. Also everyone would have more money because the state would cover for damages I. Regards to car, health, accident, etc. in addition to this, I would give people an option to invest more in ss to get a higher pay out at retirement, or to lower their age of retirement. All this though is dependent on having a tax base. The USA needs to abandon all free trade agreements including nafta, and implement fair trade. We also need a national ID system.

a reply to: ketsuko

Well here, some people believe that in the US, they'll check your pockets for your credit card before they take you to the hospital if you're not insured.

a reply to: grainofsand

The amount of invoices I used to have to send out working as a private patients finance accountant was stupefying.


It's costing our insurance companies (like BUPA etc) millions monthly...

I don't know how they recompense these debts either...


Not economically good.



There was at least 5000 Muhammad Muhammads born on the 1/1/*insert year* who owed up to 50,000 each...


& that was just the Muhammads.


Not digging at the Arabic/Asian community with that, just an example.


Many PPs are "born" on the 1/1/*insert year*...
Many are on the 6th & 7th invoice request for multiple thousands...



It was a crazy job that helped me understand the fraudulence of how hospital beds are treated.





Sorry to drift, BoyMonkey, I hope this added a little spice to the thread.

Maybe similar happens across the water with U.S. Insurance Companies.

The problem I have with single payer systems is that they tend to impose one-size-fits-all treatment options for most conditions. For standard illness and injuries, that tends to work out OK, but if you tend to pull a rare illness or you don't respond well to the standard therapies, I've heard that you can run into significant problems. The kinds of specialists and specialty therapies we think nothing of here in the US can be very hard to access. I've also heard that the wait times to see those specialists can also be killer in more ways than one.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: boymonkey74
So If you had the chance would you pay more income tax to have an NHS type socialized medical care?

NO. I would prefer that the government spend WISER and that way no one's taxes would go up. There is no reason for taxes to be this high and for healthcare to be so screwed up. 85% of Americans were fine with healthcare the way it was before Obama screwed up the whole system. Now it's over priced and doesn't work and a lot of folks lost what they liked before.

No reason to raise taxes. Just spend wiser.

Taxes this high are you joking? We used to pay upwards to 90% in taxes. One of the reasons why this nation is in so much debt is because we cut taxes. Also where does this 85% of Americans were fine with the healthcare we used to have. 85% of the people didn't have healthcare the percentage of citizens with healthcare was much lower than that.