I Left England Because of Socialized Medicine. My Life Depended on It.

The article is a bit long and you have to read it to get to the explanation. Like 9 mths wait to get to see a specialist


Imagine strapping your infant child into a car seat, only to see his body suddenly jerk forward or backward, arms and legs stiffening, and eyes rolling back in the head.

Alarm quickly turns to panic, which turns to frantic weaving through traffic to get to the hospital. Within minutes of arriving, the child is rushed in for treatment with a team of neurologists by the bedside carefully taking notes.

That child was me.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2019/11...f-socialized-medicine-my-life-depended-on-it/

 

I keep hearing of people that get free, simple, fast care in socialized medicine countries. The problems come, I'd think, when you actually need advanced care.

You can get a broken limb set in Cuba? Big whoop. We've been able to do that for millennia. New treatments regarding difficult matters? Surgery in Cuba dang near killed Castro a bit ago.

 

related thread: Man describes long wait time for emergency surgery in France

U.K.'s Healthcare Horror Stories Ought To Curb Dems' Enthusiasm For Single-Payer

 

We could potentially solve this problem with medical vouchers to people who wanted to opt out into a private system. But we know the Left is against vouchers. (Look at how they oppose vouchers for private education)
They want it all or nothing. Force everyone into the public system, and refuse to allow anyone to use the money for private care.

 

Its good for the sniffles and the flu beyond that when you "need" a specialist and beyond you wait and you suffer and the treatment is subpar, overworked underpaid Drs

 

a comment one person left in the comment section:

Michal Klein Studentenviro • 3 hours ago
My mom worked in London for a year as an MD, she will tell you the above story is NOT unusual. More than once she treated people with what at one time was treatable cancer, but by the time they were able to see the specialist, the cancer was so advanced it was no longer treatable. Socialized medicine kills.​

 

On the flip side, my father nearly cut his hand off a few days ago. Within an hour he was in surgery, of course all paid for. No hassle, no drama, just fantastic healthcare.

 

There is zero incentive for providers to give quality healthcare in a socialist system.....zero.

 

Your father would have been equally treated in the US. Payment afterwards depends on the insurance. It’s not like he shows up and they go whoops, sorry. You might pay very little if you met your deductible or hit an out pocket maximum for the year. It’s not like your Dad gets free care. It’s NEVER free unless you’re an illegal in the US

 

There's nothing stopping you getting private medical insurance

 

But but but, socialized medicine is the answer!

 

So you want them to pay a fortune in taxs for socialized medicine and because it sucks you want them to PAY AGAIN for private medical insurance

Do you realize how absurd that statement is

 

We at the VA use private specialist.

 

Still works out cheaper than you pay for your private medical care. You have the most expensive medical care in the world

 

Really, so they don't do it because they love it!? No shyt, you can get the same care from private practices also.

 

And they soak us with limited visits and limited care from private caregivers.

 

Who paid?

 

I was careful to say paid for and not for free. We all chip in and we all get the benefit. You will never convince me that the US medical system is better than the UK as it's a fact that it's not.

@william kurps This answers your question too.

 

Like hell it does, where did you pull that out of, unreal, this isnt you make it up and Ill believe it

 

Only better if you’re poor and I’ll freely admit that. If you have no money in the US it stinks. But If you have a career and insurance, it’s not the case at all. My coworker’s parents live in the UK. Horror stories regarding rationed cancer care that we can get easily here. They died. Not even comparable. Like it’s stated many times and skirted around in some studies, socialized medicine is fantastic for the small stuff. No doubt. But when you need specialized care you can get it in a relative snap in the US. Not so in the UK or Canada.

 

The obvious element missing from that article is any reference to money. There is private healthcare available in the UK and I suspect that if he paid what he does in the US for coverage (especially with a serious long-term health condition) in the UK, he’d be able to get the care his condition requires in the private sector (probably mixed with some NHS care).

He also seems to have gone about the whole thing wrong, apparently doing nothing to arrange the vital and unique medical care he requires before emigrating to another country and then simply turning up at an urgent care centre (which is basic just an Emergency Room for minor injuries) and expecting immediate response to his ongoing health condition. I don’t know anything about his specific condition but it sounds like his routine requirements could and would be managed if he actually registered with a GP beforehand (admittedly not always easy which is all the more reason to plan ahead).

Of course, the whole thing is trying to back up the age old lie, that one individual example of problems with a specific healthcare situation automatically renders the underlying economic structure behind the healthcare system in that country, and by extension in every other country with any kind of vaguely similar economic structure behind their healthcare system, bad and wrong.

The facts are simple. Western healthcare has major problems (one the developing world will inevitably face too). We can do more, we demand more but we’re not willing to pay more. It ultimately makes no difference whether the money comes from people via taxation, via health insurance or directly (typically, some mixture of all three). No healthcare system is perfect and no healthcare system is without major difficulties which lead to individual cases like this one. Just switching from one economic structure to another (in any direction) won’t change anything significant at the macro level.

Nothing will improve for any of us until we all stop playing politics and accept what the real causes are. The key word in all that is “we”.

 

There is zero incentive for American hospitals and drug companies to stop charging obscene prices.

$35 for a bandage? $250 for a pill that costs 4 cents to produce?

And let's not forget the insurance companies that fight to get out of paying for expensive procedures (assuming you can afford health insurance in the first place).

 

Of course in socialized medicine you may not be able to get the medication you need or the procedure you need based on cost so...

 

The obvious element youre missing is that if you pay for private health insurance you are paying DOUBLE because you still have to pay for garbage socialist medicine, the fact remains that socialized medicine stinks and democrats want to stick us with it and not only force us to pay for substandard healthcare, they want to put in the millions of americans out of work, put private insurance out of business and raise our taxs through the roof. Plus have the privledge of paying for millions of illegal immigrants health care and any others that they allow to run over the border.

You have to be kidding me and thats why the lionshare of america is against it and even Obama is telling democrats to shut up about it because its a LOSER

 

Bottom line, most retirees in the US are not going to be able to save the extra $250,000 for healthcare costs that they will need over their lifetime. The Boomers are going to either be bankrupt or will bankrupt the hospital system with unpaid emergency room visits. The idea of keeping the system as it is is not a viable solution.