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Comment by johnorourke | Hacker News Reader

It's so very weird reading this as a UK citizen. It feels like reading about some kind of dystopian future. Despite the UK government's best efforts to the contrary, even the poorest in society can still access health care locally at no cost... except the hospital car parking fees, that's a killer.

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Make sure you stay vigilant and keep fighting for the NHS.

Our public healthcare in Australia has been slowly eroded over the past decade (if not longer), and I'm starting to wonder if the next generation will even be able to enjoy "full" coverage at all.

This isn't propaganda or hyperbole. When my wife had a miscarriage earlier in the year, we were billed $150 for the privilege of being told we'd lost our child.

This should not happen in Australia, but it did. Don't follow in our footsteps.

Not everyone has a car.

Most (all?) hospitals are easily reachable by public transport. I've never had a car and never had trouble getting to a hospital when needed.

I got a ride to the hospital.

The ambulance ride cost me $2000 out of pocket.

I'm sorry to hear that, but that kind of thing is not an issue in the UK, or indeed, many parts of the world.

I live in Switzerland. I had a skiing accident and got stretchered down to the main station, then an ambulance down the mountain to the hospital. Since at that point I hadn't filed my accident insurance claim yet, they sent the full bill to me.

Want to know how much it was, in the land of $25 pizzas? Under $300. And of course, I forwarded it to my accident insurance, so my out-of-pocket was $0.

Fix your system.

Also in Switzerland: an ambulance was called for me in the middle of Zurich, they arrived after driving only a few kilometers, performed an EKG, and didn’t transport me anywhere. I was billed over $700 for that, which I had to pay out-of-pocket as the theoretical 50% insurance coverage was below my deductible.

Most likely it didn’t have to pay any money because you either payed your full deductible for the year already, or most likely it was payed by the accident insurance and not the regular health insurance

Yes, the accident insurance paid... but the bill was sent to me first.

Oh, fair point. We'll add a fine for bikes as well. Thanks for helping us remedy this oversight.

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