Whenever I read articles like this, I’m so grateful that in the U.K. healthcare is not tied to your job. The NHS may struggle and have its issues. But I have never had to experience the stress of the thought of losing access to care.
I know at least one couple close to retirement that is waiting until one of them can get onto cobra for the months before they can get onto Medicare. (They just budgeted for cobra in their planning.)
I like how the Aussies do it (or at least how they did it last I looked): basic public healthcare plan provided by the government, then supplemental plans offered by the employer as a benefit.
Do you fall back into Medicare if you start earning less afterwards?
I just don't understand why citizens of such a rich country would want to live so precariously.
By massive inefficiencies being removed from our economy.
Also, it'll literally be cheaper if you look at any other country that has implemented it.
There will be a huge wave of innovation whenever the USA implements nationalized healthcare.
I wouldn’t take a job that didn’t offer it (it’s pretty standard in our industry)
It’s annoying that it’s taxed at your highest income tax band (20/40/45%) as if it were some kind of super luxury. Maybe 20 years ago, sure. I think the company has to pay insurance tax on the premium too!
But yes it’s reassuring to know an emergency won’t ever bankrupt me.
At no point in his various medical emergencies did he need to wait 10 months for a CT scan... Or any other life-saving treatment.
While both are single payer, the Canadian Medicare is federalized so Vancouver Island can target its members in a manner different than Fraser Valley.
The NHS is much more top down, and the facilities seem less updated than in Canada.
Salaries also largely kept up for medical professionals in Canada compared to the UK (and plenty of BMA members have begun moving to Canada for that reason).
When I was a kid on Vancouver Island, it wasn't uncommon to see Brits doing specialized work (eg. Doctors, Skilled labor, Civil Service) because they'd get paid way more and spend way less than in the UK.
Just because the UK and Canadian systems are poorly resourced doesn't mean they can't work
You might wait a year for a knee replacement.
This is such a mischaracterization of the Swedish healthcare system, which is much more a lottery than your 'personal experience' suggests.
I have my own experience of a service that is plagued by delays, inefficiency and outright dystopian suffering alongside other people who have had fast and efficient help.
It's very much the luck of the draw - although sometimes I get the impression that social standing and even 'blondeness quotient' may help to get better care.
Regarding long waits for care. You want to be the patient who has to wait for ages. It means you’re going to be fine. You don’t want to be the person who gets rushed past the queue.
I was replying to a response that was specifically about Sweden.
> Erikun
> This was my thought exactly (I’m Swedish). It sounds so brutal, and it was not just her own but her entire family’s!
> adastra22
> Then she would have waited 10 months for a CT scan instead of 10 days.
I noticed that adastra22 was downvoted for this. I'm really not sure why, as it very closely mirrors a lot of people's experience with Swedish healthcare.
There have been a lot of stories in the news over the last couple of years, but here's just one at the top of a simple google-search, about a kid that died because their scans were postponed (in Swedish):
https://www.dagensmedicin.se/specialistomraden/cancer/barn-d...
> Due to a lack of capacity at Karolinska University Hospital, the examination of a previously cancerous child was postponed. The child subsequently died of metastatic cancer.
This is called 'strangle it then save it', and its the method that was used to privatize healthcare services in the West since the 80s. Starting with the US one...
You are also free to make wild, entirely off-base assumptions about what I believe.