VS-OT, Medical

[Ron P.]

Thank you...

Without getting into any political discussions here, what's happening to you with all your cancellations is what has people here in the U.S. up in arms. It does not happen here, and we don't want it too..

I pray that they stop playing around with your health, as you're just as, if not more important than those they keep putting in your place..!!!

[mitchell65]

Many thanks for your comments Ron. I think, though nobody would confirm, that I met the man's wife who took my place in the operating theatre. He was a man of about 35 and he had fluid "leaking" into his brain. I overhead one of the emergency team say that if they didn't operate within the hour the man would probably die! I then heard that the surgeon who was due to do my operation, was going to operate on this man. My condition is very uncomfortable and it restricts what I can do. Can't drive or walk too far but it certainly is not life threatening. If it helped to give the other man a fighting chance then I don't feel so bad. Mind you if they cancel my next appointment it could then get life threatening but not necessarily mine

[Ron P.]

Yes, that is very admirable of you...however what I'm saying is that here when you are scheduled for surgery, you have it. There is no waiting in line, no being shoved aside. What you're experiencing is ludicrous, and what our current leaders are trying to shove down our throats. We here are very aware of what you're country has, and have great sympathy for you. People should not be treated like that.

I reiterate, you are just as important, no matter what!!! gov't should not be allowed to ration such things...

[mitchell65]

Yes I agree to a large extent Ron. Our problem is the system organisation. I think our clinical expertise is very good, the problem is our system has been running for such a long time it has got bogged down with certain ways of doing things which are so old fashioned as to make them ludicrous. As a nation we do not easily make changes. Just because something is old makes it good in some peoples eyes. Personally I like to look forward and hope I can see the advantage in going for new ideas. Lets face it all ideas were new once
Anyway at the moment I must go with what we have, try to keep cheerful and keep a stiff upper lip (The bulldog spirit, don't you know). There's alway someone worse off. Well I suppose there must be one person who is at the top or bottom of the ladder whichever way you look at it who is the single worse off person left and what a hell of a state he/she must be in

[sjj1805]

Only problem with new ideas (at the moment) is they tend to be ways to try and get more money from you. Emphasis now seems to be to get people to purchase private health insurance - and it is VERY expensive. Are we not already paying for our National Health Service via various taxes and NI contributions?

Similarly the roads - drive down the M6 from the North towards Birmingham and the natural flow of traffic steers you towards a Toll Motorway.
don't we pay enough in Road Tax, Petrol Tax etc.

Congestion Parking Charges.
Well done Manchester for voting against this - other Local authorities please take note.

[Ron P.]

Since I seemed to have taken us OT for the VS forum, I split these from that thread and moved them here to the forum chat.. Saves me from having to chastise myself..

Steve I agree that trying to switch back to a free market or what is called a capitalist system can be very, very difficult and expensive. We on this side of the big pond understand this, and is why we do not want you're type of system rammed down our throats. Our govt has never been able to run/manage anything, and now they're trying to run everything, ie; socialism. It's getting very scary over here right now. The ice has become thin, and we certainly don't need or want a repeat of what we done to become a free nation.

It seems over here, that the only ones that want this type of health insurance/care, are the ones that think the govt should give them everything. That it is free, costs nothing, the ones that don't want to be responsible for anything, always has their hands out to, not wanting to earn or work for anything. They are too blind and ignorant to realize that it is not free, that it is very, very expensive, and right now instituting it would completely destroy not only our economy but have a major impact on the world economy. It would send our deficit into the trillions of dollars, a debt that we certainly could not pay off..

I guess my main reason for replying to Mitchell as I had done, was that recently there have been many examples cited by the news commentators that have the courage to speak out against our current administration, of Canadian and UK people having to wait, being told by their govts they can or can not get the health care they need. People that have died, waiting for months and months if not a year or more for a simple procedure that would have prevented them from dieing. When reading Mitchell's plight, it just solidified this, and feel sorry that he has to go through that. I don't know what the actual ailment is, but here he would have been treated right away, not pushed aside because there might be some injured fools, causing the injury to themselves by their reckless behavior. Then the final straw of being prepped for the procedure, in the room, and then sent home??? Here if the surgeon had another emergency, he may have waited a few hours, but it would have been done. I certainly don't think he would have been sent home to wait for days or weeks again.

[sjj1805]

And the reason he was pushed back is again down to privatisation.
When I was young prescriptions were free, dental care was free.
(Well not so much Free as paid for out of our taxes and National Health Insurance contributions)

Over the years various charges were introduced.
Prescription charges etc.
Interestingly those who live in Wales do not have prescription charges.

A few years back someone somewhere thought is would be a good idea to introduce private health insurance. This has been seen by many as a form of "queue jumping" where those with money take precedence over those who do not. Perhaps there are merits with this, perhaps not.
However this leads to those Surgeons who would have otherwise been a part of the National Health Service now being a part of the private sector.

This in turn means that those who do not opt to pay extra in the form of Health Insurance get a second class service because priority goes to the "haves".

Things are different in the U.S. where the majority of citizens have health insurance. Here in the U.K. is is (or it may now be time to say "was") the other way round.

If some of these surgeons were not lining their pockets elsewhere doing private health insurance work then no doubt another surgeon would have been on hand to attend to mitchell65

[Ron P.]

Yes private health insurance has it's problems. One of it's main problems here is the government being in the way. It is not allowed to offer insurance across state lines. The insurance companies must have an "office" in each state that they sell their products. This only drives the cost up, as the "groups" are kept small. It is very costly to set up offices in every state. Also competition keeps costs down. How can you keep costs down when there is no competition? If Corel was the only company that provided digital imaging products, what do you think the price would be? When the government provides a product, there is no way to compete. They can just print more money, run up their debt, where private companies can not do that. If you had let's say 100 insurance companies go into business over there, AND the government back-off being the primary source of insurance, you would be surprised at what can happen. Those 100 companies would have to compete for your business. I'm sure everyone would want the most expensive. NOT, so they are forced not by the government, but by their customers to keep the prices down. If not you go shopping for something else. You're main problem is that you're being forced to pay for your government's health insurance. That should never be. If they stop taxing you for that, and allow you to choose which insurance you want, then is it so expensive? No it's not. They don't want you to have the freedom to choose what you want, and that is what we have here, and what we do not want to lose here.

We also have the problems with the physicians selecting to treat or not treat based on wealth. I know all too well, as my oldest daughter died at the very old age of 23 because of this. After being delayed by the neurosurgeon for over a year, she was told that she didn't have the money. She could have been treated much sooner. Oh and this was through a government ran insurance program, not private. She lost her job due to the illness, and could no longer afford her private insurance.

We just are not the type of people to let the government tell us what we can eat, drink, when we can go to the doctor, and then tell us that since you're 55 or 60 yrs old, you can not have by-pass surgery when you've had a heart attack. You really like having the government being able to tell you that your family member is not allowed to have the chance to live, because it's not in their (the government's) budget? That you can not have your teeth fixed, and must suffer in pain?

Part of the problem here with our system is that it does have problems, where insurance companies have been dictating what doctors can and can not do. They need to butt-out, and let the doctors treat their patients. With privatization, if a doctor does not treat you properly, or just doesn't want to treat you, you just go to another. I've done it, just recently. Our "family" doctor for some reason just didn't seem to be treating the problem. So we got what's called a "second opinion". Guess what another doctor seen the problem differently and was able to treat it correctly. With a "public" health care system, this would not happen.

Yes private insurance is expensive. Yes there are those that have great wealth, that get the best of everything. Is this fair? Nope. However life is not fair. It should never be that one person is not allowed to be wealthy, not be allowed to afford things. You don't take what he's earned and built up away from him and give it to some bums, just because they don't have money and think that the government should provide a living for them. Health insurance not care, is not a right, it's a privilege. Why should those that lay around doing nothing, collecting "welfare", be entitled to the same life-style as those that are working themselves to death, trying to earn a living for themselves? We already have in place that hospitals can not refuse care to anyone. Because they do get some funding from taxes. How this care is paid for is and should be between the care providers and the patients, not the government. If the patient does not have sufficient insurance to pay for it, then other means are explored, to include possibly bankrupting the person.

Over here, this health insurance/care thing is just our breaking point. It is much, much deeper. If we don't stop this, then you'll see the USA dwindle to nothing more than third-world country. This is something we can not allow.

[mitchell65]

I don't know what the actual ailment is.

Apparantly I cracked a vertibrae some long time ago, could be up to 25 years. I can't remember it at all. The Surgeon said it could have been one of those times when I hit my back on something, had a bit of back ache for a few days and nothing more. I have never in 71 years had any sort of back problem so it must have healed OK. Then last Christmas had one of my very rare common colds. This was a nasty one with a real hacking cough for about a week. Day and night. This apparantly aggravated the old injury and has trapped the sciatic nerve. I need what is to them a "Routine" operation to release the trapped nerve and support the crack. They call it routine but I have never so much as spent a night in hospital, I was even born at home so it is very far from routine for me. Add to that the trauma of three cancellations and I am not in the best of spirits. But as I keep saying to all my well meaning friends here at home, I haven't got the strength of the will power at the moment to make a huge fuss. I just want to get the job done. Anyone reading this who has had any sort of sciatic pain will know what I mean when I say the pain is continuous all through my waking hours. Luckily I do get a good nights sleep. Plus I have a wonderful wife, the best Collie dog in the world and a cat who I hold long and intense conversations with. My slight loss of mobility has given me the opportunity to fine hone my knowledge of the language of "Cat".
The other thing that helps in these somewhat difficult times is to be very slightly mad

[mitchell65]

Have just read Ron's post above. That has really opened my eyes to what this controversy is all about. This is the sort of information and expresson that the politicians never hear. I know our local MP faily well and next time he is in our town I'll get him to pop in and I will show him the content of this Forum. I will, of course, delete all the names and locations will be restricted to UK or USA etc.
He's a bit of a "Yes" man but at least he is approachable!

[sjj1805]

Regarding the difference between private health insurance in the U.S. and the U.K.

The major difference is that here in the U.K. we have already pay quite a hefty sum every pay day (whether that be weekly/monthly etc.) because our system of healthcare was set up accordingly "The N.H.S."
Which is something that doesn't exist in the U.S. - obviously the U.S. have something in place for low income residents or people on benefits.
The U.S. system was designed for private insurance.

Someone over here saw what was going on over there "Private Insurance" and no doubt thought hey there's a money making idea, the Rich can buy some health insurance and bypass the waiting lists for the N.H.S.
Only thing is it has snow balled and in effect anyone who takes out health insurance is paying twice. Once for the NHS and then as second time for their private scheme.

I will admit that our NHS is not perfect in so far as there is a lot of debate about whether our "free healthcare" is responsible for attracting "visitors" from abroad. There are the obvious benefits to the consumer in the U.S. system of private healthcare who can shop around. To bring that in "properly" over here would require a big cut in taxation and NI contributions. Like I said - we pay for the NHS it is not "free."

[Ron P.]

Steve I fully agree with that. Simply you should not pay twice. They need to decide which one they want to use. The people should be able to choose one or the other, not have to pay both.

Now I will say this, that even though we have the private insurance, we still have medical pay deductions (taxes) called Social Security and Medicare. These are both government run programs, both stink like spoiled hog-farm. However so far, we are not forced out of the ability to have private insurance. You see here the majority (self included) of the people get their health insurance through their employer. How this "social insurance" will affect this, is that the employer will weigh the costs of providing both, or one. The government insurance will of course be less expensive, so will do away with the private, thus forcing everyone into this. This will cause the private companies to go out of business. Something our current leader si real good at, and marvels in, closing down or taking over businesses. Heck, he'd like to take over the UK, if given the chance. His thinking is no different than N.Korea's Kim Jong Ill (don't know if it's spelled right, don't really care), Chavez, or China. He hates white people, hates rich people (other than himself), and things that no one should be able to create wealth for themselves or family.

Finally I will add this, with that last line, how is a government run program less expensive, when there are fewer and fewer people able to pay for it? When people get thrown out of their jobs, they can't pay taxes, so they can't pay for it. You catch on to why we over here, in no way afford this. Currently our jobless rate is at 10% nationally, and in some states exceeds 25%. I don't think it was like this during our "great depression" in the '30s. That's when the last wing-nut President tried to destroy us.