National health

Monday, 15th December 2008

Two more e-mails on the US-vs-UK debate, beginning with the view from California:

I was interested in your friend's discussion of the financial problems that would affect his family were he to lose his employer-provided healthcare because, being self-employed, I do not get employer-provided health insurance. I am 51, my wife is 49, we have 2 children living at home and our monthly health insurance bill is $508 - giving us a plan with a $5,000 deductible and no vision or dental coverage. Although not marketed as such, it is essentially a catastrophic care plan with discounted fees - since the insurance company has negotiated discounts with providers. I would not describe the cost as utterly unsustainable - although it does serve to remind me how bad the US healthcare financing model is.

And another of my expat friends - an American in Britain this time - weighs in:

As self-employed parents, we cannot contemplate living in the U.S. now as we would not be able to afford private health insurance for a family of five. That is one of the single reasons that I can't even fantasize about returning. My Dad, who is on Medicare, still has to pay something like 20 percent of his bill even as a pensioner. This is no mean feat if you look at the hospital bills (and with congestive heart failure, he's racked up quite a few). They charge for absolutely every single thing used, every needle, every tissue taken from a box, and they hyper-inflate the price of everything. An aspirin might cost $3.00, for instance.
Neither country has a healthcare system that works. Personally, I think part of the problem is the public not taking responsibility for their own health. Leave the doctors and hospitals for those who really need it. People have sat in A&E for hours because they have run out of paracetamol. This happens over and over. They should be charged for wasting time. Oh, don't get me started!!!