Comments on: NHS: Lost wages not factored in cost savings

By: Evan

Evan — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:24:00 +0000

Anon 5:21, sorry but those were the facts. Nobody would do a procedure on him, period. He was willing to pay and nobody here would do it. Also Anon 2:21, I believe he had changed jobs and was waiting for his new insurance when he first got ill. After his second episode he tried to get insurance and was turned down. But again, this is the best health care system in the world, so it must have been the patient’s fault.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:21:00 +0000

Bullshit! I take care of uninsured patients all of the time. The wait time to get surgery is under two weeks. The patient has to make a good faith comittment to pay me and the hospital (the hospital requires a $500 deposit if I cannot certify that the surgery is an emergency). Sometimes the patient actually makes the payments but that is just part of life.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 19:21:00 +0000

Why didn’t the 20’s have health insurance? Was he always sick? Does he enjoy cable television and a cell phone like every other 20 something males does? Just trying to get some context here.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:24:00 +0000

It doesn’t say there is no wait time in the US but the wait periods are signficantly less than in nationalized systems. Where there are wait times in the US are not for debilitating problems but for normal physician check ups and so forth.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 18:04:00 +0000

Even with insurance there can be significant waits for precertification Also I think the recovery period applys here toobut it wasa nice try to pad your charge estimate.

By: Evan

Evan — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 17:50:00 +0000

Assumes facts not in evidence.

The most important lack in the argument is the idea that all wait times in the US are zero, which ignores the fact that around 20% or so of the population has no insurance at all to pay for needed medical care.

I had a patient in his 20s. He had recurring fevers and cough, with abnormal chest X-rays consistent with infiltrate in the same location every time. He was otherwise healthy, but had no insurance and was uninsurable due to his recurring pneumonias. He had paid out of pocket for FULL workups from ID and pulmonary but nobody would bronch. him without insurance. This process went on for 3 years during which he was unable to work.

Factor in THAT cost and many others like it. The fact is in his case, committing a crime would have been a wise choice medically.

If you really think that's an advanced, superior health system, good on you, but I think most people would disagree and would see it as a bizarre torturous system of nested Catch-22's.