I can't imagine not having a national health service funded by taxes.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy

Honestly mate, taxes are low for average folk here, I have a few millionaire mates who moan about taxes but they are property 'tycoons' with high income. Non millionaires aren't taxed too bad in the UK...I'm a non-millionaire for the record, lazy bastard only work to cover my needs lol

Actually I read it wrong. About 20% of the taxes you pay goes towards healthcare and that comes out to an average of 5%+ of your income based on your tax rate. One problem is in America healthcare is a for profit business and so healthcare cost here 60% more than in Britain. You also have a private healthcare, much like the state's that companies offer as perks in Britain. You still pay about 200 billion as a country where the US would be like 4 trillion if we tried it too without fundamental changes.

One thing going for the brits is they are doing much better than Canada or France, who both have some big issues with their socialized programs.

I pay right now well under $2000 per year for healthcare, but I have good employee coverage.

a reply to: Xtrozero
I would seek those fundamental changes if I was a US citizen. I massively support my taxes providing my healthcare and the care for fellow citizens.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: Xtrozero
I would seek those fundamental changes if I was a US citizen. I massively support my taxes providing my healthcare and the care for fellow citizens.

Those changes will not come anytime soon, remember 90% of Americans are well covered. The changes would need to go down the path of making a new system at first to those in need, outside the insurance umbrella.

a reply to: Xtrozero

good luck getting that up and running , its bound to fail if there is money to be lost !

originally posted by: AngryCymraeg

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: eletheia

What are the average wait times?

Depends what it is. For an emergency they get you in ASAP. For elective surgery you might have to wait a bit, depending on the nature of the surgery.
An example: Last year I was bitten by something (I never found out what, perhaps a spider or a mosquito) on the elbow in the middle of the night. At 3am I woke up, felt the itch, scratched mightily and fell asleep again. In the morning my elbow was a bit swollen and by lunchtime it was really swollen. When my wife came back from work it was still swollen and there was a red line going up the inside of my arm in the direction of my armpit. She takes one look, goes as pale as a ghost, says "Blood poisoning" and then gets me in the car and drives me to the nearest A&E (the British version of an ER). There I was assessed within an hour, had blood taken for tests, had what looked like the equivalent amount of penicillin pumped into me and was then discharged after about two hours, having been given an box of large pills and instructions to come back the next day to be checked over. My life had been saved as I had blood poisoning that if left untreated could have killed me. Total cost to us? About £5 in parking fees for the car park.
What paid for my treatment? The NHS, which I have paying into since I was 18 years old.

Pretty much, if you're waiting more than 15 mins total at hospital you're not 'ill', you have 15 - 20 people working 24/7 on you so while waiting for one result other tests are conducted so there's no dead time. If it's something non emergency like a broken bone you may be two hours or so, maximum wait of two weeks from entering a & e to having custom made ceramic/titanium pins and plates fitted. The wait is only that long as it's better for surgeons to wait for initial swelling to go down to minimise the impact surgery has.

Had acute scepticemia in my leg few years back (from a bee sting of all things following completing mock SAS selecton) was lucky enough that the senior doctor was a fell runner and recognised me - knew I was stupidly healthy but must have been doing some stupid endurance for vitals to be running so low. Instead of initial diagnosis of blood poisoning reached the brain amputate leg to save patient it was revised down to 1 litre of intravenous erythromycin daily for 30 days. Was immediately put on drip leg saved and physio completed within 14 days. The local GP manager - equivalent of one of the most senior and experienced doctors in a State was kind enough to give me a lift to and from hospital a few times to have the drip administered.

More recently had a seizure, head injury and critically low blood sodium levels, had full CT, MRI, blood tests screening, emergency gp visit to see how I was doing, talks with neurologist, epilepsy nurse, specialist consultant, lab technician resulting in return to perfect health in 36 hours - didn't even have time to sleep as phone was constantly going off as lab results came in and treatment was administered.

EDIT: There is a two-tier system in the NHS that's a bit unspoken - if you look after your body, aren't a smoker or hard drug user (or elect to quit and get free NHS support to quit smoking) you get upgraded to a fast-track, higher standard of care as there's far greater chance of 100% recovery while if someone continues to smoke following a broken arm/surgery etc... they're not going to recover so resources aren't wasted (but the 'standard' care is still world class.

Though NHS privatisation is sadly a done deal (goes back to John Major introducing PFI/PPI, Blair steamrolling it awarding Branson the contracts to mental health and 111 calling themselves 'NHS Care'. All A & E and Trauma wards in Lancashire close pretty soon, there's only one private hospital in the county (Lostock Hall) - have leaked photos of receipts for care from DRs and bills are crazy (chemo treatment is something like £5k a day) - will post pics if anyone wants to see (need to remove meta data first, been somethings I've been campaigning against for 10 years or so).

Cornish - Ever tried accessing clinical trials at Universities? I use a few for neurological conditions I have, instead of paying £60,0000 for private neuro-rebailitation and professor and team of post-doctoral students provide the exact same care (actually a far higher standard as using cutting edge equipment and research driven for cure and to obtain knowledge rather than proft) but they pay you £6000 for it.....Paraxel run them around your way every few weeks, I don't know much about Miniere's (other than it has a French pronunciation after the discoverer and some vague memory about a King having it) - but I go to a Charity called headway for help/advice in finding out which consultants and specialist units are the best to have on your side.

a reply to: bastion

Oh my dad had an allergic reaction to his prescription , and he was swelling up in the face and going into anaphylactic shock , the doctor came out in like less than 5 minutes and gave him an andrenaline shot

my dad has actually been in hospital a few times for various things, he had accidentally broken his nose in 12 places , when I was wee and had his nose surgery in a week of the accident , that was 90's
he has also had operations on his urethra as he had some porblems with his urinal tract

If I knew for a fact that my taxes just went to education and NHS id even pay a slightly higher rate , knowing my money wasnt going to war or anything which I dont morally agree with!

Wish there was a rule for that , people should get to chose what they want their taxes spent on ! and over time gov would see a higher proportion going to social issues , m! edical , education , housing etc and less and less on things we dont need

One thing is certain , there are elements within UK government who are intent on making it collapse under stress, by continuing "austerity" cuts on NHS , this will force the UK public to watch as their healing mother is hung drawn and quartered before them , then watch as we all turn on the NHS for being a waste of tax payers money and not fit for purpose, to then have the tory vultures, fight over the carcass as its chewed up and sold off ,and then the US system comes in and all the tory parties ties to private health care and pharma corps come out in the public news .

Id be willing to bet that people will react violently if the NHS comes under threat like that

a reply to: sapien82
I'd pay more taxes if it was solely for education, health, and social care.
No problem with that at all.
...I haven't engaged in any civil disobedience or protest for a while, but killing the NHS and introducing a US style system would get me out of my cave again. You are correct, it would be violent, it's like one thing the nation agrees on, free healthcare at the point of need, taxes helping everyone.

originally posted by: bastion

Though NHS privatisation is sadly a done deal (goes back to John Major introducing PFI/PPI, Blair steamrolling it awarding Branson the contracts to mental health and 111 calling themselves 'NHS Care'. All A & E and Trauma wards in Lancashire close pretty soon, there's only one private hospital in the county (Lostock Hall) - have leaked photos of receipts for care from DRs and bills are crazy (chemo treatment is something like £5k a day) - will post pics if anyone wants to see (need to remove meta data first, been somethings I've been campaigning against for 10 years or so).

You are so right about that. A debt that should never have happened and

crippling the NHS. There are many savings that could be made. On a

personal basis I have phoned my Doctors and asked for my regular meds.

to be generically dispensed.

I know that is small change but its a start.


The biggest things always have to start somewhere.

a reply to: eletheia
I saw my doctor today, magic drug isn't working as well so he told me to 'double up' on bad days, also getting an appointment for some hearing aid which may cancel out my Tinnitus, it's as loud as people shouting sometimes lol can't hear the TV at my mates house.
Got more magic drugs as well, so everything today including the doctors appointment cost me around £8.00.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

The great PFI heist:

PFI debt for the British taxpayer is more than £300bn for infrastructure projects, with a value of £54.7bn. To put it into perspective, the PFI debt is four times the size of the budget deficit used to justify austerity

Sir Howard Davies, chairman of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), recently made an astonishing admission on BBC1’s Question Time when he stated that private finance initiatives (PFI) had been a “fraud on the people”. Beyond seemingly populist rhetoric, the real story of PFI reveals that RBS alongside other global banks, notably HSBC, were instrumental in what Sir Howard has effectively labelled a great heist.

It was a persuasive argument which seduced many. The Blairite Third Way would somehow square the circle by delivering new schools, hospitals, roads, railways and prisons without the debt or inefficiency of the public sector. It seemed too good to be true yet those who dared to question the orthodoxy du jour were swatted away.

As early as 1999, Richard Smith, editor of the British Medical Journal, denounced it as “PFI: Perfidious Financial Idiocy” in an editorial revealing that repayments would be exorbitant. In the same year, Professor Allyson Pollock and colleagues published a paper sounding the alarm over the potentially disastrous consequences of PFI debt and the financialisation of public services.

It later transpired that the process of bringing in PFI had not exactly been transparent. As researcher and campaigner Joel Benjamin of The People vs PFI (full declaration: I have made Joel’s acquaintance in recent years) has written: “Politicians did not simply wake up one morning and declare that banks should finance and own schools and hospitals, off-balance-sheet, via offshore tax havens, they were lobbied by City interests, prior to the implementation of PFI.”

For a golden period, Gordon Brown’s apparent vanquishment of boom and bust kept any problems in check. But when the financial crisis was followed by the diktats of austerity, PFI began to unravel. South London Healthcare Trust became the first NHS trust to go bust in the summer of 2012, having found itself on the hook for huge PFI costs.

The total bill for NHS PFI hospitals is ultimately projected to rise above £79bn, way in excess of original build costs of £11.4bn.

And the following is nothing less than criminal.HOW CAN IT BE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN?

****Many PFI contracts came with strings attached, “facilities maintenance” often subcontracted on a long-term basis as part of the deal. As a result, only specific contractors are allowed to change or fix certain equipment or fittings, such as a plug socket or a light bulb. A Daily Telegraph investigation flagged up several egregious examples but this one really stood out: one hospital was charged £52,000 for a job which should have cost £750.****

www.independent.co.uk...

a reply to: eletheia
The intricacies don't worry me, we have a system which treats everyone.

originally posted by: Xtrozero

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: Xtrozero
I would seek those fundamental changes if I was a US citizen. I massively support my taxes providing my healthcare and the care for fellow citizens.

Those changes will not come anytime soon, remember 90% of Americans are well covered. The changes would need to go down the path of making a new system at first to those in need, outside the insurance umbrella.

Define 'well covered', please.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Oh im not sure if im just hearing machine noise feeback or im losing my hearing , as I test myself constantly and it always says my hearing is good for my age !

however I can hear a high pitched whine often , mostly at night when I goto sleep , my fiance' believes its our consciousness and DNA being updated!

I am a firm believer that ive ruined my hearing from too many late nights on the decks at after parties when the monitors are # , and standing raving to close to the bass bins in the arches in glasgow every weekend for 10 years solid!

Although I can hear great , not sure what is going on!

a reply to: sapien82

My electric noise in my ears is really loud, my mate reckons it's the 90's and noughtys rave days catching up with me haha.

Just had a phonecall from the hospital confirming appointment at the ear/nose/throat clinic next week. I've had fantastic service this year from the NHS, as the OP says I can't imagine not having tax funded healthcare, I'd owe thousands now from the treatment and investigative work so far.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

hahahah those pesky ,Class A fueled 90's!

glad for you mate, good to know you are being looked after with my tax pennies

we may not always see eye to eye, but im happy to know my tax pennies are helping contribute towards your healthcare !

hahahahah

aww the best

a reply to: sapien82
Haha cheers mate
...and the win win situation is my treatment/magic drug allows me to continue working so I still pay taxes.
I only do 2 or 3 days a week lately but I'm still a taxpayer as it's good money plastering down here.
Can you imagine living in a country where cancer means bankrupcy?!

I'd pay more taxes if it was fenced in for NHS/social care, every friend I've asked has said the same, I don't know anyone who wouldn't agree to it.

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Aye id gladly take the percentage from my tax used on everything else and put it towards NHS and Schools/ social welfare !

surely there should be an option for that , and the ones who love war can spend their taxes on that instead!

Oh how good are ye at plastering Ive got three rooms needing done , get up to glasgow !

a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Democrats are coalescing around this being their #1 priority in the new Congress on 1/1/19. They suddenly realized that improving America's Healthcare System is why they won the U.S. House. All polls showed this to be #1 for Americans.

a reply to: sapien82
Haha glass finish plastering mate, it's like the only side of my life which is artistic, I love turning someone else's crap plasterboarding into something beautiful...Glasgee is a bit far for me though lol

...I wonder if any party will bite the bullet and offer increased taxes for improved health/social care at the next election.

originally posted by: carewemust
a reply to: CornishCeltGuy

Democrats are coalescing around this being their #1 priority in the new Congress on 1/1/19. They suddenly realized that improving America's Healthcare System is why they won the U.S. House. All polls showed this to be #1 for Americans.

That's interesting. I've seen the change on ATS over the years with US members. This thread 10 years ago would have been shouted down as commie bastards, but not so much these days, only one or two members are happy for cancer victims to lose their homes for medical bills now.
Maybe change is coming to the only developed nation which doesn't offer tax funded healthcare for all citizens.
I hope so, genuinely as a fellow human.