Nobby, and people from the UK.Follow

The NHS, on the whole, is absolutely brilliant. People can still take private insurance to get better quality care if they can afford it, but everyone is covered. And the quality is very good too, despite all the horror stories. Everytime I've used it it was really good, clean, efficient, and friendly. Just a shame dental care is not covered.



As permanent as things can be in this world. It will evolve. But the basic principle of everyone having access to treatment for free, has got to stay, and I think it will, at least until the next major world/uk catastrophy.



Of course they can. Theoretically, they can afford it, and it would be cheaper than the system the US currently has. Despite your lack of universal coverage, the US spends more per head on healthcare than the UK. Or France. And yet not everyone is covered, the premium system is fundamentally flawed, and lots of people can't afford simple and basic stuff. Your system sucks aS, there is no doubt about it.

The French system is awesome too, even mroe so than the UK one, but we run it at a huge deficit which will bite us in the *** one day. But until then, if you're gonna get treated anywhere, for pretty much anything, France is one of the best places in the world to get it done. And its free if you're a EU citizen. Pretty cool.

Anyone from the EU can get treated for free, for routine health problems, in France. Practically, it rarely happens unless you're travelling there. No one in Bulgaria catches the flu and then decides to fly to France to get treated. But, theoretically, they could. And some do, though not for the flu of course.

If you need a serious operation not covered by the basic provisio of the NHS or the French SECU, its more problematic. Poor French residents will get financial help from the state, but non-French residents won't, and it usually won't be worth it for them to make the trip. It might still be cheaper than at home, though, and plenty of people come to France to get specialist treatment, because its high-quality and cheap. And if you can sneak in to the A&E, then you're pretty much sorted, for free.

The French government is trying to stop it, or curb it, because of the strain on ressources, but its not guaranteed they'll succeed. EU law enshrines the free movement of people, so if you're an EU people and become ill in a country, you get treated there.

The older I get, the more failures I see in my own government. Being a member of the US military for several years, even I, can look at other governments and look at my government and say "WTF?!"

I love the United States as much as any American should, however, I feel more and more, due to unfair taxation, miss-government, and failure of communication between the people of the United States, and its representatives; I feel the US Government is becoming a lost cause. A lot cause, not to foreign governments, but because of huge corporate conglomerates. Reading the various reports of past presidents, congressmen, and presidents and congressmen to be, being bought by these huge industrial/commercial entities, that the US Government is failing, and will continue to fail, that which matters most: US citizens.

It is a sad day when Americans have to suffer because HMO's or Medical Insurance Companies refuse payment on customers that have been paying for decades.

While this might (and rightfully so) be considered a liberal issue, all of us, rich or poor, one day will succumb to illness. Those of you who know my personal view on the subject, might understand my personal interest in the topic.


What pisses me off further, is there are a lot of fuckwads in my generation:

"Politics doesn't matter'

"Because of <blah, blah, blah> my vote doesn't matter.

Et cetera.

They're all excuses for us (my generation) of not getting off our asses and voting for matter that are truly important. While I may not be the most political savvy person in the world, I do realize it's importance.

Edited, Feb 11th 2008 8:27am by Rimesume

It might not be easy to set up national taxpayer funded healthcare in the USA, But I'm sure it can be done. Australia runs a duel public and private system. There are government run hospitals, and privately run/owned hospitals. There is "Medicare" and there are also private health insurance companies.

The USA government can start setting up its system, reguardless of what the private sector does. The government system is going to need plenty of medical staff recruits. If they offer enough, they'll attract staff from the present private system, which will naturally shrink as the government competition comes in.

the public is just going to have to stand fast against howls of pain and protest from the existing companies in that private industry. I think it's not a government responsibility to guarantee the existence of any particular type of industry, especially if they are being replaced by something better.

should we have protected the jobs and companies responsible for lighting the gas street lamps when electricity came in, or the jobs in Asbestos manufacture?

yes people's lives are dislocated when there are shifts in industry. This is why I believe people need to be supported with unemployment benefits, and why government should pay for retraining for people laid off in masses when their company shuts down or is restructured.

It would be an effective way of removing your competition.

This reminds me of a joke someone i knew used to tell... incessantly. And now I'm thinking I need to shear my little lambs o' cotton.

If they covered perscriptions I bet it'd be harder...

Rimesume, your question: "Do you, personally think, the US could financially afford something very similar to the NHS?" assumes the wrong fact, that the UK system would be more expensive. In fact, it would be vastly cheaper. As many have pointed out.

Reducing health care costs will be the only way for the US to remain competitive economically. And therefore there is immense pressure for that to happen. It is likely to go through a period of mandatory private coverage (with government subsidies), which may well be more expensive then the current system. After this, either a known system like the one employed by virtually every other first world nation (socialized medicine) or something completely unknown will be tried.

You Brits are so pessimistic.

Why rule out the catastrophically horrifying doomsday scenario? Like a giant nuclear tsunami, or Yellowstone exploding at the same time at the start of WWIII, or France winning a war.

Those things can happen. They won't, but they can. And when they do, it'll be the perfect opportunity to give the 6 people left universal healthcare.

Forgive the necro-bump, but I thought this was a decent story.

I'm now waiting for the backlash from selfish bastages who will claim the time and money should be saved for more white deserving people.

I got a bill from an emergency room in France when my daughter was in an auto-accident over there. Apparently they dont' cover yanks.

As it is, with the baby boomers coming to retirement age and folks living much longer the government is on the hook anyways to be medically supporting a much larger percentage of the population than ever before.

They'd best start chiseling away at those exorbitant costs.