A story of the NHS.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

For anyone who has been living under a rock during the current health care debate, the National Health Service, or "NHS" for short, is the publicly funded national healthcare system in England. What follows is a description of my one and only interaction with the NHS during my four years of life in the UK.

Used to be that every once in a while I'd suffer from cracked skin on the underside of the little toe on my right foot. It was never anything severe, never more than a minor annoyance. It would always heal, and I'd not think much of it. Considering the amount of time I spent walking around barefoot, it was par for the course. One day in January 2008 I felt a sharp pain from that area of my foot. Thinking it was the same thing as always, I ignored it.

At 3AM I had to stop ignoring it because the pain was so intense that I couldn't sleep.

At 4AM I went to the bathroom to have a look, and sure enough the telltale red lines of infection were creeping up from my little toe towards my ankle. They were about three inches long. Now I was getting worried.

I tried in vain to get some rest, then went in to work at 9AM, not to work but simply to ask for advice from my co-workers (being an ex-pat and someone with no medical issues, I had no idea how one would go about dealing with this problem.) By this time the red lines were halfway to my ankle.

Long story short: Having never had any interaction with the NHS whatsoever, not even getting a regular GP, I was able to get a local doctor and an appointment for 2PM the same day. After examination (and by this time the red lines were up to my ankle) I was able to check myself into a hospital, receive IV antibiotics and saline, was kept overnight (just in case) and was released the next day with prescriptions for antibiotics, pain killers, and antifungal agents (athlete's foot being the most likely cause of the original skin condition which allowed the infection to occur.)

Also, they had extremely good coffee.

So, to reiterate, I went from not even having a doctor to being treated by one of the best hospitals in the UK (Addenbrookes, same as Stephen Hawking) in a bit less than six hours. And not once at any time did I ever have to open my wallet. (On the other hand, I'd been paying into National Insurance, which partly funds the NHS, so "free" is not the word I would use.) The service was entirely professional, and except for having to wait five bloody hours for my prescriptions to be filled, everything went amazingly well.

With such a rapidly spreading infection, I've no idea what I'd do now in the USA. Probably go to the ER and get charged thousands of dollars.

The NHS is a fantastic service. It is by no means perfect. It can be slow at times, but I was always treated with dignity and respect, was given every available option for my treatment, and was made as comfortable as possible at a very uncomfortable time. Even when the bastard intern was icing my foot so he could gouge the hell out of the abscess formed by the infection. (That part kind of sucked, but I don't think that was the fault of the NHS.)

[Selatius]

1. What would the hospital bill be for a similar scenario inside the United States?

Are we talking 2500 to 5000 dollars here in out-of-pocket expenses?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. I don't even want to know.

I've been hobbling around on a horribly sprained ankle for three months because I'm unemployed and the types of (very expensive) healthcare I've looked at consider it a "pre-existing" condition. I wish I were joking.

[Selatius]

5. I sprained my right ankle exercising about three years ago.

Had no health insurance, and my ankle was terribly swollen. My friend said it looked broken and told me to go to the ER, but I rejected that because I didn't have health insurance coverage, and I would be driven much deeper into debt than I already was. I had to suffer it until it healed on its own and I correctly assumed it was a severe sprain instead of a break, but the first month walking was a trial. The day after I was wanting to cry when I was trying to walk to class.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. I had a sprained ankle a few months ago

By evening it hurt so badly that I was afraid it was broken, but it was a Sunday night, so I waited till the next day to visit the nearest urgent care clinic. I knew that if it was broken, there was danger of it not healing properly and causing life-long problems.

With my high deductible, I will do anything to avoid formal medical treatment (rationing, American-style), but I didn't want to take chances.

At the clinic, I was examined, splinted, and given a pair of crutches. The doctor didn't think the ankle was broken but ordered X-rays just to make sure.

The total cost was $500, about $150 less than if I had been "uninsured." (I have a high deductible, but presumably, I get a slight rake-off from group doctors for being "insured." However the rake-off is much less than one month's premium, so in effect, I spent thousands of dollars to save $150.)

[Fridays Child]

9. I had an uninsured ER experience. It included an exam and a pregnancy test. Nothing else.

No medical problems were found and my presenting complaint resolved itself over the two-hour time period that I was at the hospital.

This was twelve years ago. The bill was $650.

[Selatius]

17. 12 years ago? And it was $650 then? It's probably well over $1000 with health care inflation today

This is an unsustainable trend. If the public option turns out to be crippled on purpose or is eliminated entirely from the bill, the current system will simply collapse after a majority of people are literally priced out of care.

[Fridays Child]

20. Easily over a thousand.

And you're right, I fear, in your prediction. Unfortunately many, many people will succumb to otherwise preventable and treatable conditions, in the interim. Talk about death panels. Ugh.

[Kerrytravelers]

3. Question: Did the NHS turn you into a Socialist? What freedoms did you lose?

Did you know it was un-American to not allow a private insurance company to deny you health care? Why do you hate American?



:rofl:


And if I really need it ----> :sarcasm:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

4. Well they did tell me that I had a MRSA colonization.

Which freaks my cousin out to a great extent, because he is a germophobe with a 2.5 year old and an 8 month old. I think I wash my hands fifty times a day when I'm around his family.

[gateley]

6. We owe a debt of gratitude to the NHS without whom we would have lost

you AND Stephen Hawking!

I can't even imagine such a smooth, relatively stress free experience to attend to such a problem. I'd happily pay into an insurance plan for such service!

Great story -- I'm going to use it next time I hear a disparaging remark about socialized medicine. I'll say "my close, personal friend, Cessna Invesco Palin..." :hi:

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Extremely good coffee? In England? That destroys any...

credibility you might have had for the rest of your story.

:evilgrin:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

12. I know. I was amazed.

It was some of the best coffee I've had in England.

[Cleita]

8. You are right that no health care is free. Most people have to pay

something into it, but it's there when you need it. Everyone in the USA, who works, has to pay payroll tax or FICA, which funds Social Security and Medicare, but most Americans cannot partake in these programs until they are 65. It seems it would be fair to allow everyone to partake in a program they pay into, yet they would rather put their money into plans that are almost guaranteed to make sure they never get the care they need when they need it the most. This is how effective the propaganda has been.

[WildEyedLiberal]

10. Heya stranger!

:hi:

Weirdly enough, I too just dealt with an infected ankle/foot, which may or may not have been MRSA related. A round of antibiotics and an ice pack for the swelling did the trick for me, though - fortunately, since I DO live in the US.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

11. Who you callin' stranger, hippie?

Sorry to hear about your foot. Is it OK now? Being crippled sucks. Also, I think I still owe you a jar of plum jam. Apologies for not attending to this sooner. (It's really fucking good plum jam, too.)

[WildEyedLiberal]

21. Yeah it's okay now

We'll see what my doctor bill with my WONDERFUL AMERICAN HEALTH INSURANCE ends up being, since I don't have office call coverage. But at least I can walk and my foot doesn't look like a swollen beluga whale.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. Heh...

One of my friends commented that after the big sprain my foot looked like something out of a Monty Python animation. :-)

[FunkyLeprechaun]

13. The NHS is a wonderful service

I think it would work in the US.

People should look at how the NHS was created by Aneurin Bevan:

After 18 months of ongoing dispute between the Ministry of Health and the BMA, Bevan finally managed to win over the support of the vast majority of the medical profession by offering a couple of minor concessions, but without compromising on the fundamental principles of his NHS proposals. Bevan later gave the famous quote that, in order to broker the deal, he had "stuffed their mouths with gold".

The beginning of the NHS reminds me of what is happening now in the US. The opposition party was fiercely against it, the health insurance companies as well.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. I love the NHS, but I don't think it would work in the US, unfortunately.

It's incredibly frustrating to see people, including people in my own family, buying into this "socialist / communist" hysteria when the reforms being proposed are not anywhere near as invasive as say implementing something like the NHS in the United States. Take for instance the fact that Obama has actually given credence to these insane Death Panel arguments by rebutting them. Seriously, if people can't even accept Medicare paying for consultations for end of life care, and we lend credence to Sarah fucking Palin's Facebook page as an indicator of popular opinion, then where are we?

Also, where the hell is the criticism of HMOs in all of this? Many on the left have criticised HMOs for years, and I can't count a single instance of any of our congresscritters blasting HMOs during the current debate. And people fucking hate HMOs. What is going on here?

[FunkyLeprechaun]

15. Many people here didn't think the NHS would work when it was first created

And over the years they've been proven wrong.

I know people in the medical profession and they said that the current status quo cannot stand and there has to be drastic change. A NHS-style public option is the best option for the US.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

24. The problem that we face...

...is that most Americans don't even understand how the current system works. Most have health care, and simply assume that they are covered (even though in many cases they aren't.) If I'd fault Obama for anything in this mess, it would be for not painting a clearer picture of exactly why and how the current system is so broken.

[Selatius]

18. If only leftists had the kind of money HMOs and Big PhRMA have.

You can bet the HMOs have used that fact to their full advantage. There are few industries in America that could literally afford to spend 1.4 million dollars per day just running television ads decrying reform as nothing short of being un-American and "socialistic" in the pejorative sense ("communistic" for the old-school Republicans). The cash we give insurance companies through the premiums people pay is being used against the people, against us in essence. Like giving a murderer a gun with the bullets as well.

[Kingdom1979]

16. Living in the UK

I am UK born and have lived here all my life.

I have had a lot of dealings with the NHS, either with treatment for myself or for a family member. I am hoping to post a full account of my NHS dealings on here so you can pass them on to your doubting friends and family members...but as I am new to this forum I need to post some more replies first...which is a pain! I really want to share my experiences with you.

I just cannot believe that a country like the USA has such a corrupt health care system.

[Selatius]

19. The secret to understanding the United States rests with our election system.

In our election system, politicians must raise cash from individuals. There is no taxpayer-funded elections, and the taxpayer funded mechanism in place right now is woefully inadequate to the point where a privately funded candidate for office simply can outspend the publicly funded candidate. The result is most politicians spend most of their campaigning lobbying people to donate to their cause.

The problem--and this is a gigantic democracy threatening problem--is that such a system gives a competitive advantage to very wealthy people, people who can afford to blow thousands of dollars or even tens of thousands of dollars or even several hundred thousand dollars to help their candidate of choice. Working class people do not have that kind of firepower.

This opens the door to the establishment of a sort of neo-fascism, a plutocracy where the wealthy overlords make most of the fundamental decisions, and everyone else is left to simply accept the decisions.