2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 112,243
- 52,465
- 2,290
Ive tried to explain this before,either people did not want to try and understand or I am just not good at conveying my point here.Everybody does.Who pays for these guaranteed things?Everyone is guaranteed essentials in a socialist or social democratic state. You would not go without. But I do not see Americans going for this because corporations own the country.No I dont want to see someone die from something curable because they couldnt afford treatment, yet on the other hand I dont want to see any of my family members die because I couldnt afford my new out of pocket that I have to pay in order to provide service to the other guy that would have died without treatment.
see the problem here?
Places like where you are for example have had socialist, or however you want to refer to it, healthcare pretty much forever.
we have not. and this is where the huge problem comes that makes it prohibitive to people in my income bracket.
You most likely have had this type of shared expense care since you were a child, when you went to work the amount taken regardless of the cost was a known expense. If you made a dollar you knew that among the other taxes you would be paying X amount toward the health care right? so when it came time for you to sign on the line and buy that house, or the car, or even how much you would set aside each month for food and living expenses, that amount for health care was already there. you were able to plan for it.
Now consider if like me, you have been paying around 500 a month for your families health care that had no out of pocket, 10 dollar doctor visits, 7 dollar prescriptions free for the ER or specialists that you were referred to.
You work, buy the house the car vacations savings etc.. and everything is good, you balance your checkbook every month. Now all of a sudden with almost no warning you get hit with this health care that is now going to cost you an extra 300 to 400 a month in premiums, and you now have a 12,800 a year out of pocket before the insurance kicks in. What was a 6000 a year bill yesterday has suddenly become 10 to 28,000 dollar expense today. You have not planned for it because it was not something that was a consideration your entire life. How do you do it? do you sell the car? the house? not send your child to college as planned? remember, the insurance is forced so when you have to find that extra1500 a month what do you suddenly today start going without.
What if you worked your entire life, youve been responsible and have worked with planners to make sure you had enough to live on when that retirement day came. Maybe you are planning to retire next year but all of a sudden you realize that you planned too well and even your retirement income leaves you without subsidies for the insurance. Guess what? you might not be able to retire, you might have just been forced into working till you drop dead at work.
See, this is a huge difference between your country that has had this type of coverage forever, and a country like the U.S that has not. our politicians are in an income bracket that allows them to spend the extra money without noticing too much. They fail to realize that the average citizen does not enjoy the same financial freedom.
For most in this country, the ACA once in full play, or even single payer, is going to create extreme financial hardship.
You cant expect someone that planned for retirement under one set of rules to be able to shift tracks and suddenly find out they are 20k short from eating if they retire, same for the guy still working, e cant do it either without losing something or going totally broke.
I will be honest and state that those figures are jaw dropping. It looks like a real mess and you have my sympathy.
The NHS was introduced after the war by a great Welshman, Nye Bevan. It replaced a patchwork of charities,private insurance and mutual societies which were well meaning but inefficient and out of the reach of many.
This is a good read if you want a picture of life before the NHS. I have heard similar tales from family members.
“Hunger, filth, fear and death”: remembering life before the NHS
This Telegraph article is an easy to understand calculator on the costs to the individual. In truth I have never given the cost a moments thought. I know it is wrapped up in my tax bill but what I pay and what I get are weighted heavily in my favour.
Revealed: how much you pay towards benefit bill
So by the figures given a man on £30k a year pays £1200 towards the NHS. That covers himself and all his family. £30k would be considered a decent wage in the uk and is above average I think.
And thats it. There are no exemptions or exclusions. When our guy is too old to work he is still covered as the next generations taxes pay for it.
Sick people can concentrate on getting better rather than worrying about actually paying for their care.
We do have private provision in the UK. But it is not a universal service. I had it for many years with my employer and only used it twice. Once when my employer wanted me to have an operation at a specific time and date for work reasons. And the other was when my wife wanted to see Madonnas gynaecologist for a specific condition.
Looking at your 6k a year original cost for a second. The Telegraph chart reckons that you would need to earn 125,000 dollars a year to have to put in that much.
For somebody on low income , say 15k or 18000 dollars the cost is just £360 p/a. These might be people on zero hours contracts or ,primarily women, working part time. They get the same level of care as the guy earning 125k.
The truth is that there are probably aspects of the American system that we can learn from and vice versa.
I also think we should be spending more on the NHS as the government have cut funding,in real terms, for the past few years.
But it would still make it a good deal compared to the American model.
There are efficiencies in doing things on this scale.
Drugs costs being a prime example.
The U.S. Pays a Lot More for Top Drugs Than Other Countries
And of course there are no corporations that need to make a profit.
But there are cultural differences which make it unacceptable to many Americans.
NB - The Telegraph is a right wing source.
The NHS cannot be sustained......it is going to collapse and the healthcare is poor quality.....