Oh, no worries then! I should know better.
Plus it’s an important point to highlight. But like other areas, even when the facts are on our side, it’s often hard to convince people that they are facts and not some liberal-conspiracy talking points. I can say that neither are a problem until I’m blue in the face, and people still believe them to be true…
I’m seriously considering finding a job and moving to Europe, one of the main reasons being that the older I get, the less I care about how affordable all manner of toys (computers, fancy clothes, phones, TVs, kitchen gadges etc) are and the more I care about having healthcare, decent education for my kids if I ever have any and a decent retirement. It really boggles my mind that these things are such an issue in a so-called “first world” country.
In fact, allowing doctors to keep on carrying out private work while also being employed by the NHS was a key move in getting doctors’ support for it, back in 1948.
Nye Bevan was the minister for health who set the system up, and he deftly sidestepped the British Medical Association’s opposition by allowing consultants and surgeons to keep their lucrative private practices alongside their work for the new NHS. This split the BDA, and moved a lot of very senior and influential people’s opinions, whilst also carrying along all the more junior doctors who had ambitions to be senior consultants.
The Germans still do, and are single handedly keeping the EU afloat.
How now, brown cow?
Leaving off ‘government’ from your quote above results in a tidy definition for ‘HMO’.
That sure would be nice.
I don’t know the number of Americans who die too early because they can’t afford to see a doctor/dentist regularly.
I just know one person is one person TOO many.
Since we know that health outcomes would be better, this argument boils down to doctors placing a greater value on their paycheck than on their patients health.
In NZ richer people just have health insurance. Then you jump the public health system completely and go to one of the private hospitals for whatever you need. But yes, the treatment you get in the public system is very good, it can just take a while to get it (or you may not be able to meet the criteria to even get on the wait list for an appointment).
I just paid privately for obstetric care for my recently born baby, whereas I could have got it free with a midwife funded by the state. It cost just over $4,000 for all the prenatal care and the birth (ceasarian - most of the cost of this would have been covered by public health care despite me going private). I hear that having a baby in the US generally costs over $10,000. I think our private care here is cheaper maybe because of the existence of the public system. No-one is prepared to be charged astronomical fees when we could get it for free.
Mine was $9000, with a midwife, sans surgery. Just the birth, mind, I don’t care to try to add up how much the pre-natal care was because that would be depressing.
In 1971, when my first son was born, prenatal, hospital, and post care went for a total of $800. (no, I didn’t miss a zero on the number). My Doctor was a part of the community hospital system and it was a all in one price.
I don’t envy those having kids these days.
Adjusted for inflation, your son’s birth was less than half the price of my son’s. My $9k didn’t include prenatal or postnatal care, the $1k or so first year immunizations cost me out-of-pocket or the pediatrician office visits.
You’ve provided more evidence that health care and pricing in the US is utterly broken, divorced from reality, and intentionally inefficient. So…thanks?
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