Single Payer Health Care

[Prophet 451]

6. I can only tell you about the NHS

Here, the government collects the money in taxes (income tax is about 20% for most, not counting National Insurance (our version of Social Security)) and dispense it to the NHS. We don't pay premiums at all. The only co-pay is a small fee (currently about $15) for filling a prescription and the young, old and poor are exempt from that. Every citizen is covered, no exceptions. Doesn't matter how old you are or your employment status and, contrary to the lies of your right, care isn't rationed. The NHS directly owns the majority of hospitals and employs the majority of doctors and nurses.

It's not perfect and I wouldn't want to mislead you that it is. But it is a lot better than you've been told. Only major downside is that there are sometimes "waiting lists" (actually availability lists where you and teh surgeon arrange a mutually convienient time and date) for some elective operations. But, even if you have to wait a month or so, the operation will get done and if you don't like teh wait, you can just ring up BUPA and put the money down.

We still have private insurance companies here, BUPA being the biggest. People buy private insurance for all kinds of reasons. Some want to skip the availability lists. Some want namebrand drugs (the NHS uses mainly generics to keep costs down), some want luxurious hospitals (the NHS tends toward functionally spartan both to keep costs down and make cleaning easier). Some just want the status symbol. The important thing is that, because the NHS provides a bottom floor of care for cost, private insurance has to be better than that to get anywhere.