advertisement


Living in the US

Portugal it is for me when I retire.
Good weather, good cheap & cheerful food & wine, nice people and very safe place to be.
Health care is not too bad there either
 
Minio said:
At least Americans don’t waste the doctors time. This is due to the cost.

I know people that go to the doctor in Britain with all sorts of silly things like colds and acne.
I even know someone that booked a doctors appointment weeks ahead just in case they might need it.

Spoilt brats aggravating an already overloaded system!
Click to expand...

You've clearly never suffered severe acne - it can ruin someones skin and their life. Its a horrible, potentially disfiguring thing to have and something people can be very unkind about. There are thousands of cases of teenagers feeling suicidal over their acne.
 
Conan said:
Portugal it is for me when I retire.
Good weather, good cheap & cheerful food & wine, nice people and very safe place to be.
Health care is not too bad there either
Click to expand...

plus whatever happens with Brexit they will continue to offer health care to Brits.
 
cubastreet said:
AFAIK the problem was that people didn't want to pay for the healthcare of others, because socialism is bad.
Click to expand...

It is more about racism than socialism. The majority of the people that would receive healthcare would be non-white; and those rich, white, church going Republicans don't want to pay for it.
 
Last edited:
My enthusiasm for the NHS has become dimished of late by the almost total disappearance of GPs. I assume this isn't a problem in the USA?
 
palasr said:
Some perspective from a lifelong US resident in upstate NY. I'm a relatively spry 50, and have had the same employer for more than 20 years. I work at a technical university that employs over 3000 people, and we have a choice of three different medical insurance plans, all of which are very good. Being unwed (albeit living in sin for 25 years) without children, my healthcare insurance (Capital District Physicians Health Plan) costs exactly $7145 per year, with my employer covering 75% of the costs leaving the remainder being deducted from my pay. My yearly deductible (the maximum amount I'd have to pay out of pocket regardless of procedure) is $5000. Some procedures require pre-approval from my insurer (for example, I'm about to have a cardiac CT scan with contrast that required pre-approval). I've never come close to having to pay $5K for any medical procedure (and I've injured myself severely a couple of times in the last 25 years) - this unfortunately varies by plan, location, quality of insurance and the size of one's employer - smaller companies are charged more per employee since they have less employees enrolled in any given insurance plan - there is, in other words, strength in numbers as to how much one's healthcare insurance is going to cost out of pocket. Folks I know who are self-employed pay approximately $12000 per year for the equivalent coverage I have. I also consider myself lucky in that we have a large, regional health-care collective whereby most folks get locked into one provider for all services - these collective providers (there are approximately four regional networks) compete with one another, but in the end most folks eventually get settled into one regional health care network. My primary care provider, my cardiologist, my any specialist you can imagine all work under the auspices of this one network. I'm free to use a physician outside this network, but this is where that pesky deductible begins to dig in - this out of network provider may or may not adhere to the set guidelines from my insurance provider - any charges out of range would also be out of pocket. If for example, I'm injured while travelling domestically and have to seek out medical assistance, my insurance would pay only the amount had the service been provided locally, or on a scale averaged for a particular region. Prices for healthcare vary wildly all over the country; even within the same city, the same procedure performed at different hospitals can be bizarrely different in price.

I take two meds - a statin and an ACE inhibitor. 90 days supplies of each cost me approximately $1 to fill (at my current pharmacy - my old pharmacy charged me $10 for one and $5 for the other).

Dental insurance is completely separate from medical insurance. All things optometry (contacts, eyeglasses) are not covered by insurance, although yearly eye exams are covered. Ophthalmology is considered medical and is covered under health insurance. Cosmetic surgery is not covered at all.

I am all for the eradication of private healthcare insurance and demolition of the for-profit medical system we currently have, favoring something along the lines of the UK or Japanese system - all procedures have a fixed price regardless of where they are carried out or by whom; physicians and hospitals are compensated at a sane rate (there's no reason for a surgeon (or anyone for that matter) in the US to make millions of dollars per year). I would rather pay into a system that guarantees healthcare for all citizens, not just those who are employed or who can afford it. Healthcare (like education) is a basic fundamental human right - there are no downsides to having everyone educated and healthy.

If you have any other questions, feel free.
Click to expand...

Very informative post, thanks.

In The Netherlands where I presently live & where everyone is obliged to have private health insurance, I feel the system is vastly superior to the NHS. The basic insurance is capped at about €115/month, regardless of age (!!), and those unable to pay and children have it paid for by the state (Students have about 80% paid). You can buy extra insurance packages : I have an “Over 50” package costing €17.50/month extra & allows up to 15 visits p.a. to a physio, €400/year acupuncture (I have a monthly tune up), new glasses every two years & more.

Edit: if you have a major procedure, you have to pay a little under the first €400 (can’t remember exact figure).

It amazes me that the USA has floundered so badly in providing cost-effective health care to all.... but I’d still encourage those interested and with a suitable opportunity to seriously consider living there at some point. Like I said, it is in so many positive ways an amazing country.
 
been here for eighteen years now (direct from canada by way of germany where i was for a few years) - probably not really comparable to the UK which is much more similar IMO to canada and germany. if you own your own business taxes are GREAT and VERY LOW - i.e. you can write off just about anything - if you fold profits back into your business you basically don't have to pay much at all taxwise. And yes as others have said - health care here is PRIVATE and it's a BITCH. The cost of drugs is approximately five to ten times higher than in canada or EU countries. I had a brief bout WITHOUT insurance and unfortunately found myself in the emergency ward due to a failed gallbladder. The bill (for ONE DAY) in hospital was USD 100K (!!!). Otherwise - a lot of the stereotypes you may have about life here probably hold up. Food is cheap - and so is materiel (very easy to get cheap supplies if you are a contractor or into light manufacturing etc).
 
In Washington D.C. there's a project to art-ify underpasses and other utilitarian city features. One display was creatively lighting a walkway under a bridge. The homeless folks with tents seem to like it ...

o0D1Azs.jpg
 
sean99 said:
It's more complex than that. Before the ACA passed the protests were all about bogus socialism scares and having to pay for others insurance.

These days the protests are about the high cost of ACA plans. Obamacare made illegal skimpy health insurance plans that did not protect people from bankruptcy and did not pay for child delivery among other things - i.e. trash insurance. Thus folks claim that their insurance that used to only cost $250 a month now costs $1000 a month, but they are not comparing like with like (though they would not realize this unless they got sick).

In short after the ACA a whole lot more folks were exposed to the true (ripoff) cost of US healthcare and they're mad about it (as they should be). Unfortunately they blame the ACA instead of the medical providers and insurers who profit so handsomely from the ripoff prices.
Click to expand...
sean99 said:
It's more complex than that. Before the ACA passed the protests were all about bogus socialism scares and having to pay for others insurance.

These days the protests are about the high cost of ACA plans. Obamacare made illegal skimpy health insurance plans that did not protect people from bankruptcy and did not pay for child delivery among other things - i.e. trash insurance. Thus folks claim that their insurance that used to only cost $250 a month now costs $1000 a month, but they are not comparing like with like (though they would not realize this unless they got sick).

In short after the ACA a whole lot more folks were exposed to the true (ripoff) cost of US healthcare and they're mad about it (as they should be). Unfortunately they blame the ACA instead of the medical providers and insurers who profit so handsomely from the ripoff prices.
Click to expand...


Quite right - most people have a very misled perspective on the US 'healthcare' system. in fact - the ACA (aka 'obamacare'), people forget, was years earlier called 'Romneycare', named after the REPUBLICAN politician who foisted it upon the public. But it was the insurance companies who spent millions trying to bring this to the table - because it would fill their coffers with new payments from the previously uninsured. The truth is, it (the ACA) does not resemble 'socialised' medicine in any way. The expenses are ABSURD. The medications are jacked WAY up (for example a one week course of amoxicillin antibiotic -about 24 pills maybe - cost USD 280 in the US and USD 12 in Canada). Any pretense of humanitarianism is just that and nothing more. And once you make a 'claim' (get sick involving hospital care) expect your rates to go through the roof - since the insurance company will have to extract it's artificially billed expenses back from you in the short term) - to me that's not insurance but rather a short term loan programme. See also: the film 'sicko' by Michael Moore.
 
jtrade said:
Very informative post, thanks.

In The Netherlands where I presently live & where everyone is obliged to have private health insurance, I feel the system is vastly superior to the NHS. The basic insurance is capped at about €115/month, regardless of age (!!), and those unable to pay and children have it paid for by the state (Students have about 80% paid). You can buy extra insurance packages : I have an “Over 50” package costing €17.50/month extra & allows up to 15 visits p.a. to a physio, €400/year acupuncture (I have a monthly tune up), new glasses every two years & more.

Edit: if you have a major procedure, you have to pay a little under the first €400 (can’t remember exact figure).

It amazes me that the USA has floundered so badly in providing cost-effective health care to all.... but I’d still encourage those interested and with a suitable opportunity to seriously consider living there at some point. Like I said, it is in so many positive ways an amazing country.
Click to expand...

I'm not pro private healthcare by any means, but this seems like a very good middle ground if it ever had to come.

I think what scares most is the likes of the horror stories posted here about 30-40k a year premiums and 10k hospital visits, I'd like to think if that was ever on the cards for the UK then there'd be protests that make XR/Peoples Vote look like amateur efforts.
 
Jonathan said:
And once you make a 'claim' (get sick involving hospital care) expect your rates to go through the roof
Click to expand...

To be fair to the ACA that's one thing it put an end to - hiking of premiums due to pre-existing or prior conditions / claims. Prior to the ACA it was a huge problem - cancer survivors often found themselves unable to purchase insurance (their only path to insurance was work related).
 
Jonathan said:
the ACA (aka 'obamacare'), people forget, was years earlier called 'Romneycare', named after the REPUBLICAN politician who foisted it upon the public.
Click to expand...

As I understand it, it is even funnier - the original idea came out of the conservative Heritage Foundation and was applied in Massachusetts by a combination of Republican governor Mitt Romney and senior Massachusetts democratic Senator Ted Kennedy (the latter a long-time advocate of health care reform). It became an embarrassment to Romney during his Presidential campaign, when, in the light of the Republican antipathy towards Obamacare, he tried desperately to backpedal, saying that it was fine for a state, but not for the country as a whole.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top