NHS rant
I've seen a few QOTW responses complaining about the NHS. I write today to tell you: DO NOT BITCH ABOUT THE NHS.

Jesus, you guys. You whine because your NHS specs weren't stylish enough? Most private health insurance plans in the US don't even cover vision care!

Wait, what's that? Public health plans? Oh ho ho ho fucking ho.

Do you know what our national health plan here in the US is? I'll tell you.

It is COCK-ARSE-DIDDLY-MINGE-FUCK-ALL.

Do you have health insurance? Great, you may need to make a "co-payment" (usually something on the order of $50/visit to the ER (A&E, casualty, whatever you call it), $30/visit to the doctor, and $10-30/prescription, depending on how much oral sex the drug reps buy for the insurance company executives) and deal with health insurers (a worthless, irredeemable pack of petty jobsworth cunts if there ever was one--actually, that's somewhat disparaging to cunts, and as a great connoisseur of the cunt, I probably ought to find a more fitting pejorative, but this parenthetical has sufficient length (ooh err, missus!) as it is), but you won't break the bank.

Oh, you say that you don't have health insurance? Ho ho ho ho ho! You will please stand still, then, whilst we ram this big fuck-off telephone pole up your arse! Why, no, we didn't remove or disconnect the wires and whatnot first, why do you ask? You needed health care, and we provided it, so you are now, for your information, our bitch. And you will take it like the bitch you are.

I have Type I (insulin-dependent) diabetes. I recently had an acute episode of low blood sugar (hypoglycemia). And I'll admit--I ought to have been more careful and seen it coming. But I didn't, and I returned to consciousness to find an IV in my hand and two EMTs standing over me. This tells me three things: 1) I fucked up very badly, 2) there is virtually no way I will persuade these people not to take me to the hospital, and 3) this will be extremely expensive.

You see, I don't have health insurance--I recently finished grad school, and my student insurance ran out back in August, so I've been going bare since then.

Well, you say, why don't you get health insurance? Because insurers over here are well within their rights (not to mention good sense) to refuse your custom on the grounds that you have a "pre-existing condition." One person I knew got turned down because she'd had a complaint of back pain before. So you can see how diabetes, a notoriously expensive disease, would make a health insurer wary. I'll soon be eligible for a state-sponsored plan that essentially insures the uninsurable, but it doesn't do me a bit of good as to that ER bill.

Oh, and as to what the ER bill will come to? Well, the doctor's bill was about $250, the ambulance bill about $100, and I haven't gotten the hospital bill itself yet, but I'm betting it'll be over $700. That's right, the total bill for my fuck-up will be more than a month's rent here, and I live in a very expensive city.

If you complain about the NHS, or any similar national health-insurance scheme, and they have not, through gross negligence, killed or severely maimed at least one of your close friends or family members, then I will give you two choices. You may 1) spend half a year in the US with a chronic health condition and no insurance and see how you like it, or 2) have me come to your place and STAB YOU IN THE GENITALS. But don't worry. It may be a long wait at A&E, but at least you know you won't spend well over a grand on something that you didn't ask for and didn't have the chance to refuse.

I've no sympathy at all, you ungrateful fuckers.

Nor, for that matter, have I apologies for length. Wankers.

(No, as a matter of fact, I'm not bitter, and twitching like this is just a hobby of mine. Yes. A fucking goddamn hobby. Dick.)
(callombard, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 5:01, 14 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

I agree with you
I do not understand how a civilised country can leave someone dying in the street because they do not have the means to pay.

I would like to point one thing out though, glasses and dental care are not provided free. You can get free glasses on the NHS if you are under 16 or claiming benefits. Dental care is not free and is why the English have teeth which the Americans find so funny.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 7:12, Reply)

err
we pay for the NHS via taxes and stuff, and some treatments are not free.

You can't get an NHS dentist and if you do they will just rip out all of your teeth rather than do any expensive work on you.

Feel free to wait almost 3 months for a physiotherapy appointment.

no no its only something moving around in my knee that reduces me to agony if confronted by stairs, i'll cope, the daleks did.
(Halfy By light alone, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 7:18, Reply)

Why hello there.
It's always nice to see somebody having a rant over something that they know nothing about. As other people mention, we pay tax for the NHS. A lot of tax. In fact, the amount of income tax we pay has been known to make Americans choke on their foamy, piss-weak flagons of mass-produced "beer".

And it doesn't work. It's so badly run that the *billions* of pounds paid into it by the British public disappear into a black hole of middle management initiatives. None of these have anything to do with providing actual health care and so the system suffers.

Sure, if you break your leg or have another reason to end up in Casualty, you won't have to pay for it but don't you think that is only fair enough in a democratised Western society who claims to uphold the basic human right to life? Apparently America doesn't think so. Who's fault is that? Yours.

We have every right to complain about something we pay for that doesn't work to anybody's satisfaction. The fact that we have it and you don't is utterly irrelevant.

For your information, the reason *why* you don't have it is because our government is, at least partly, Socialist. Certainly far more than yours is, what with America's tendency to think "Socialist = OMG COMMUNIST". If your country wasn't so concerned with having more money in their pockets, you guys may have voted into power a government willing to nationalise a few things other than their golf club buddy's bank.

Trot along now, sweetie :)
( Kroney, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 7:44, Reply)

Oh dearie, dearie me
As a matter of interest, what is the average % paid in tax in the US?

I believe the expression 'you get what you pay for' may apply.

The NHS was set up by suspicious Socialist types at a point when the UK was financially on its knees, paying back massive sums to...the USA in Lend-Lease payments (the fact that the US was pouring cash into the remains of the Third Reich at the time to keep them darn commies out is an amusing historical aside), had just lost a major chunk of the much-maligned but compared to others fairly benign Empire (oh, and leased out a few bits to,wait for it, the US) and was so skint after spending years fighting the war (yep, the one you were late for) that we still had civilian food rationing for many years, and still managed to set up something with the highest principals. Oh, and turned up to give you a hand in Korea.

However, what you get after 60 years of political interference, mismanagement and complete financial incompetence is very different.

Go to your average A&E department. If you are upright, sober, and quiet, chances are you'll be seen in about 4-5 hours. You'll probably see bins over-flowing with clinical waste, clotted bloody fluids, staff poached from across the thirld world to fulfil political pledges and because a good proportion of UK kids don't want to be spat on on a regular basis for crap money, your blood samples will either be lost, incorrectly packed, or the results disappear into an admin vortex. You'll see 'cubicles' without beds, missing/broken lights, and funnily enough rather nice and dedicated, if tired staff.

All personal experiences.

A few weeks ago, I was at the funeral of a friend who contracted MRSA in hospital halfway through chemotherapy. The MRSA weakened her to such an extent that she was basically told the chemo was to be discontinued as she was no longer likely to survive, here's some opiates, now off you go and die quietly like a good little soldier. Which she did.

If you have a chronic condition, especially for such things as joints/backs, in fact almost anything orthopaedic, you will get heavy hints about going private for everything from chiropracty to full knee/hip replacement. Huzzah, you're off the list!

If you live in the wrong area, your primary care trust may not have the same opinion as the one next door about using Therapy X. You could very well snuff it thanks to your location. NICE may decide that the proven, tested and used all over the world Therapy Y is not cost effective enough for use in the UK, leaving you to expire while a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey lives to a ripe old garlic flavoured age. The hospitals themselves tend to be either old, saturated with nasty bacteria, or built using PFI in the last ten years, with the result that our children will be filling the well-inflated pockets of major New Labour supporters when we could just have built the fuckers using public cash and saved a bundle over time. Except we couldn't, because PFI commitments are off the books (Hi Gordon).

However, all the above are our problem. We're allowed to whinge as much as we like. It's part of Brit culture by now. And, we pay for it, so we can.

If you live in a country and culture which has traditionally preferred to spend it's cash on shiny things, bombing foreigners, and running around looking for Commies to annoy, then that's your problem. Use the much vaunted democratic process to change it, except it's unlikely to work, as it's too 'Liberal' and I suspect would be so unimaginably expensive that you'd have to cut back on hiding UFOs and bailing out incompetent financial institutions (oops, hang on....)

So, lets get to the point. By your own admission, you got the old blood sugar wrong (probably expended all your energy according to your post last week), went 'weeble weeble' and went down faster than an Essex Girl. Your error. You woke up to see a couple of nice people who had decided to be nasty to you and administer (lifesaving? I don't know. But a diabetic coma can't be good) medical assistance to the person lying on the floor making the place look untidy. Okay so far. And it's going to cost you. Sorry matey, but everyone fucks up expensively now and then. I even bought an Isuzu once.

You're just a bit cross, aren't you?

And someone has told you about the incredible 'Free' NHS that everyone moans about.....




Edit: this is not an Anti-American rant. I quite like them, in a 'two cultures separated by a common language' way. Some of my favourite B3tans are Septics. It'd just be nice if people would do their research before getting all gobby (Madonna for one) about an institution whose moral principles are/were the envy of the world, even if it was invented by Socialist Scum.
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 8:39, Reply)

Not much point in writing anything too long after these replies...

So I'll stick with fuck off.

Perhaps if you spent less money on illegal wars then you would have some cash left over for health care, although this would soon be eaten up by the mobile lard deposits that you call countrymen.

If you have a medical disease and don't get insurance then frankly you're an idiot.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 10:27, Reply)

I wonder how much of your knowledge of our health care system you got from that
shitty Michael Moore film which sings it's praises.

As previously mentioned we are taxed for the NHS.

I'm lucky enough to have private health care paid for by my work, but it's the low level shit that is wrong with the NHS, things that should be taken for granted, like cleans hospitals, and staff who always wash their hands...
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 10:51, Reply)

dear mr (ms) american
I have been to the States on a number of occasions over the last decade or so, sometimes because of work and sometimes to re-unite with friends I made whilst working there.
Now I know am British and therefore not too bright but even I realised that taking out some form of health insurance might be a good idea 'cos hospital costs are very expensive. Depending on the nature of the visit I think i've paid between $50 - $100 dollars for the insurance to cover me for the duration of the trip. Money well spent. On the two occasions I needed treatment (dental and minor fracture) the staff have been fantastic, the food of resturant quality, and the turn around time suberb.
I am not going to slag of the NHS here but they "cope" and there are lots of reasons why it isn't great (too many to go into), but feckkin hell I pay for it thru my badly maintained teeth.
So--
DO your research before opening your mouth / (writing shit).
DON'T insult people you've never met.
TRY voting for somebody who doesn't think he's a cowboy.

PS please do come to the UK, try and stab me in my genitals and then call me a wanker to my face and I'll show you just how far I can ram a telephone pole up your arse.

"Have a nice day"
(smells-like-victory-v's, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 12:07, Reply)

Calm down, folks.
As an American I well understand where this rant is coming from. I don't have any input at all on the NHS, but I have plenty on the US system.

For one person, health insurance tends to cost the employee around $500 a month or so for the minimum insurance. This usually means a co-pay at the doctor's office of around $20, a co-pay of around the same for a prescription and a larger co-pay if you go to the Emergency Room. If you go to a specialist- say, and ear doctor- without having first gone to your general practitioner for him to look at it and say "Yup, you need to schedule an appointment with an ear doctor" the insurance will not cover the visit at all.

And that's if you happen to be lucky enough to have health insurance.

I do not have insurance at all- I'm a contract employee, so even basic major medical is about $300/month if I have to pay it all myself, and that's more than I can spare at this point. If I get seriously injured, I'm fucked.

And if you aren't wealthy and can't choose a doctor? Good luck. A friend of mine recently lost her mother. Why? Because she went in for a colonoscopy and the doctors punctured her intestine in FIVE PLACES. That's gross incompetence to say the least- but they were in the only hospital her insurance covered, and seeing the doctors her insurance would pay for.

And if you have an existing condition, such as the above mentioned diabetes or a heart condition or hepatitis, many insurance companies will refuse to cover you. What do you do then?

So while the above rant may be a bit strident, please remember- we're hurting pretty badly over here.

(Note to the new person- don't come in and rant at the British like that. You're making us Americans less welcome in here. Please reconsider your tone, okay?)

EDIT: And someone asked about the tax rates over here? Typically income tax is around 30%, sales tax is around 7% (I've seen it anywhere between 3% and 15%), and there are local housing taxes and the like as well. (I think my house tax is around $2000/year, though I would have to look it up.) We also get taxed in the form of tolls on roads, though they don't call it a tax- but if you need to use an expressway, have your change ready. And now, thanks to the financial shit hitting the turbine blades, all of this is likely to jump a LOT.

I don't have any idea how this compares with yours, but would be interested in finding out.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 13:05, Reply)

Complaining about the NHS is something of a national pastime
but is more to do with the gross mismanagement of the system at times, rather than the system itself. As has been pointed out, we are taxed very heavily for the privilege of 'free at the point of access' healthcare, which then fails its users on occasions.

My own experiences with the NHS have generally been OK; I've never had to stay in hospital, so my judgement may be a bit clouded on that score.

However, there are times when I have been pissed of with the NHS. My ex mother in law for starters - a woman with a history of breast cancer, and who goes to the her GP suffering from chest pains. The GP refused to even concur that there might be a link. By the time she'd managed to convince her GP to send her for tests some six months later it was too late; the cancer having spread to her bones. She died a few months later.

So in some cases, the moaning is justified. As I said, it's not the system generally we're complaining about, it's about the way it is run, and on occasion, some of the people that staff it.
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Fri 3 Oct 2008, 13:39, Reply)

the nhs
is an amazing system staffed by some amazing people that has been knackered by two things.

i) mismanagement and middle management;
ii) abuse of the system, both by spurious claims and by its being raped by too many people who don't contribute anything in taxes, or who don't contribute enough for what they take out of it. it's a relic of an era when there was a smaller population, fewer elderly people and fewer unemployed, i guess.

in general, i think the nhs is there when you have a real emergency. however, i don't care which country the doctors/nurses come from, they are clearly capable when you see them in action. but they shouldn't be allowed to explain the situation to relatives if they can't speak english. by way of horrible example, we had 48 hours of expecting my mother to come round/recover when it was never going to happen, purely because the doctor who tried to explain her stroke couldn't speak the language properly and left us with entirely the wrong impression. it was the one thing that could have made the whole nightmare even worse.

then, a few days later, she was choking. we asked why they had moved the tube that had been draining fluid from her lungs, and the nurse, who also spoke very little english, said, "oh, she didn't like that tube, so she bit it." we immediately started doing cartwheels, thinking they were wrong, there was life, it was going to be fine after all, we weren't going to lose her...

until we asked the doctor and he said, "i'm sorry. the nurse means a gag reflex."

again, it was like some kind of extension to the torture.

as for the septic whinging, well, lots of places look to have a cushy deal until you live there. it's like people who live outside of london complaing about people who live inside of london complaining about the tubes. sure, if you live somewhere with 1 bus an hour and 1 train a week, london transport looks great. but when you are reliant on it, you quickly realise how overpriced and shit it is. the hospitals here are the same.

if he moved to the uk for a year, he'd run screaming back to his state of the art american hospitals and beg them to let him pay through the nose!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 14:04, Reply)

NHS
My recent brushes with the NHS have been:-
Surgically - Superb
Nursing wise - Superb
Ward wise - Patchy (and this is in one of the biggest and newest hospitals in Europe)
Administration wise - Absolute unadulterated chaos.

But, in the US my diagnosis, operation and after-care would have cost approximately 4 years of my present National Insurance payments.

I'm not harpic* but I really think our way is better "Free treatment at the point of delivery."

YMMV

*Harpic = antiseptic = anti-American.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 14:07, Reply)

I complain about the NHS
Sure, it's a brilliant system and the idea that everyone is treated roughly the same regardless of how much money they earn by state owned healthcare is a fantastic one. And a state run healthcare scheme also keeps parasitic bloodsucking Medical insurance companies out of the picture - so far so good. However it could be better, there are problems with it that need attention and seeing as any British person who has paid NI has contributed to it then I think we've earned the right to complain about its relatively few failings. Just because I complain about the postcode lottery of drug selection, overworked staff, outsorced cleaning and such doesn't mean that I'm not amazingly grateful for it and that I don't realise just how lucky I am.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 14:53, Reply)

1) The first rule of b3ta, don't come on and whinge as a newbie
2) For once, I feel qualified to respond to this rant as a previous user of the NHS, a fully insured Legal Permanent Resident of the USA, and a previously ininsured illegal immigrant.

Right, here we go. The NHS (or socialized medicine as it's also referred to) has it's plus points and bad point. Plus points - the nurses are in it because they actually fucking care. They're rushed off their feet all the time due to lack of funding and lack of staff (due to the lack of funding), but they work for piss poor wages. If they could spend every minute with you they would, but they can't.
NHS dental care is a fucking joke, which is why I've spent over $7K in the last 2 years slowly getting my teeth fixed.

When I was uninsured in America, I had a couple of issues that cost me around $18K, ultimately. I'm still paying those debts off. BUT, the care I received was amazing. Never mind that I was uninsured, I was treated as if I had the best insurance in the world.

When I injured my arm in January (see the Stalker post in my profile), because I'd had like, 3 beers, I was redtagged and not allowed any painkillers, and they put a band on my arm that basically said "alcoholic drug abuser" (never done drugs but I do like a drink, especially when catching a mahoosive fish, hence accident). Because of this, my insurance refused to cover me! $1400 for stitches, $800 for anaesthetic, $1,000 for doctor.

So.....the NHS might make you wait forever, which sucks.
Being insured in America doesn't mean shit.

Oh, and original poster, cock off.
( Batshitmentalist is sane for once, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 15:31, Reply)

Hmm
It's a tricky one.

As you may know, I'm living in the states, but as my teeth confirm, I am a brit abroad.

The UK system kept my father alive, bouncing him around various hospitals and consultants until they found a good one. Then he had surgery, was ill for a while, but is now back to decent health. He has a chronic gut condition, which has regular complications, but which he's been treated for, and survived. the hospitals he was kept in were FILTHY, to the point of shit smears on the ceiling in one (no, really). however, dad was able to take 6 months off work, then a further 6 months working part time, until he went back to full time.

A colleague here has more or less the same condition, and has had her insurance stopped because of it, so she and her husband now find themselves with mounting bills, unable to afford to take any sick leave, and she only now is able to go and see other doctors, as previously her insurance prevented her from looking outside of the network (or something like that - i'm not totally sure what's going on). But, she has just been approved for surgery, which, all being well, will cure her.

So, the differences?
1. In terms of waiting times, none.
2. Cleanliness of hospitals? USA beats UK hands down.
3. Cost? Well, I expect that the USA cost more to the individual, but then, dad has been paying taxes for 35 years or so, so the overall cost is probably the same.
4. Actual healthcare? No difference that I can see.
5. Sick leave - well, my colleague only gets 1 day of paid leave a month (as do I), whereas in the UK, you get as much as is deemed appropriate by your GP/employer.

Overall, I think I prefer the UK system.

And if management in the NHS could be improved (say, by losing most of it, and not carpeting their fucking offices and giving all managers solid oak desks etc etc), the UK system would be amazing, one of the best in the world.
( ascorbate, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 15:47, Reply)