The cost per person of health care in the US is far, far higher than that of the countries you're deriding.
People do, actually, choose to have their cancer treated in the UK.
Try to get mental health care in the US if you're poor.
Care being denied because you're too old, or too young is just crap. Your whole "the government will stop you" argument is based on one story where a child's parent's wanted to make their suffering last longer, even though the evidence was quite clear that the only people who would benefit from it was the people lying to them about whether there was anything that could be done.
The NHS is responsible for an astonishing number of advances in medicine. And no, it isn't a coincidence.
Nobody is talking about people who earn enough to have great health insurance when talking about the state of the US system. We're talking about the system overall.
> Those “great” systems come at a huge cost.
Last I checked, the per capita cost of the NHS is about the same as Medicare + Medicaid. But the NHS provides universal coverage.
> Nobody is going to the U.K. for advanced cancer treatment if they have a choice.
Well, yes, they do. The UK has a number of world-class private hospitals, some of which purposefully market themselves to international patients. Many of these are staffed by people who also work for the NHS, and some of them rent NHS facilities, including equipment and operating theatres to provide services, as part of the reason the NHS is as cost effective as it is, is that NHS trusts are allowed to supplement their budgets by leasing out excess capacity.
But worth considering when reading about the state of the NHS is that UK has private healthcare insurance plans available, at a tiny fraction of most US insurance as it's offered as a "when the NHS is too slow/not good enough" type "top up" insurance where you see your (NHS) GP first, and tell them to refer you privately if you can't get straight in to an NHS specialist and/or the NHS does not provide the best service available. And because the NHS usually does provide service fast enough and well enough, that tends to cost quite little to provide.
Despite all the complaints, only ~10% of people in the UK take up private insurance, mostly when it is offered as a perk by employers.
In other words: people complain about the NHS because we think it could be even better, and because a lot of us would like to see it receive more funding. Very, very few people in the UK would like to see "US conditions" in the healthcare, to the point where the threat of the involvement of US healthcare providers in provisioning of NHS services is being used as a scare tactic in the current election campaign.
> The US system is fine
Every single discussion I see about healthcare where Americans describe their experiences with the US system tells me it is not fine. It tends to read like horror stories from third world countries.
> The NHS is a shit show — try to get mental health care. Try to get advanced treatment and diagnostics. Try not to be too old or they’ll just deny your care. Be careful if you are young too — if your parents want to take you out of the U.K. because the NHS has no more options, the government will stop you.
It's pretty clear you're getting your "information" about the NHS from sources that are unreliable at best and outright lying at worst.
The NHS is not perfect, but it provides better services for most people than what they would be able to afford somewhere like the US, and does it while spending far less money than US providers. For those who are not satisfied with that, there are plenty of private providers to choose from.
A lot of the criticism of the NHS seems to be on the assumption that it is the only alternative. It is not. It is set up to provide universal service on as cost effective basis as possible to ensure everyone is guaranteed access. Those who can afford to pay more than people are prepared to fund the NHS for are free to pay more, just like in the US. The difference is that unlike in the US most people can realistically choose not to without a risk of going without treatment.
> And how many revolutionary drugs have ever come out of the NHS? Very few. That isn’t a coincidence.
Well, yes, because the NHS is not a pharma company or an R&D outfit. It's literally not its job. The UK has plenty of government funding of R&D, and plenty of pharma companies. It could do more. But it'd still not be the job of the NHS.
Currently in Germany. Everyone i've spoken to about this states their healthcare isn't the best either. Wait times, wait limits, misdiagnosis, etc.
Coworkers wife got misdiagnosed, developed into a lung infection, put her in the hospital. She can't change doctors.
This whole "Healthcare is better X" is a fallacy. No only do people not have enough first hand indepth knowledge of how healthcare works in each country. But many countries, cultures, and environments are different in ways you can't calculate. I.e. In Europe people will eat more produce and fruits simply because their Grocery stores are on every corner. In the U.S. Not so, even in major cities.
> This whole "Healthcare is better X" is a fallacy.
It's not. There are objective questions on which one can compare healthcare systems:
- do people end up bankrupt / needing a gofundme for medical events regularly? This comparison alone is enough to discard the US system, for example.
- do poor people have access to the same quality of healthcare as rich people do? In Germany, for example, dental care only covers "basic" implants/fillings that, while they do work, do not look very good.
- what is the median response time target from call to arrival of EMS?
- is staffing of careworkers in hospitals/hospices/elderly care adequate or is it regularly understaffed?
- do people of "undocumented", refugee or unemployment status have access to healthcare?
- does medical insurance require (absurdly large) co-payments?
- is medical insurance actually affordable for all persons eligible?
- does medical insurance pay for quackery (such as homeopathy)?
- is medicine (both OTC and prescription) affordable / covered by insurance?
> I.e. In Europe people will eat more produce and fruits simply because their Grocery stores are on every corner. In the U.S. Not so, even in major cities.
While I agree that this is a foundation that causes illnesses, I don't see this relevant when comparing healthcare systems. Health care should be compared on how those in need are attended to.
Yes, I agree there are objective questions. But few people who make these arguments are..
1. Qualified and Educated enough on the matter to really comment and dive into it.
2. Are making the argument from an objective perspective.
Simply put - A majority of Americans don't even realize that with deductibles, if they paid cash for a doctor visit or medication and then sent insurance the bill. That they would save money. Instead they go through insurance, which increases the price, and because they haven't hit their deductible. They end up paying more.
> I don't see this relevant when comparing healthcare systems. Health care should be compared on how those in need are attended to.
Because rates such as the ability to care for people are largely dependent on how many people are sick and ill. - For Example - The large replacement of fats with sugar in foods in the United States is being tied to an increase in Obesity and Diabetes. This alone is one of the biggest spends of the US Healthcare industry.
These are things that need to be considered when planning long term 10-20 year changes in Healthcare. Because in order to plan for Healthcare needs for 10-20 years, it is largely dependent on factors such as this.
