Don't panic! UK - style health care will not kill you.

Tooty, that is exactly my point! I don't take note of Moore because I accept he has an agenda. All I was saying was, as there is currently a debate going on in the US, treat some of the anti- UK system propoganda the same way we treat anti-US propoganda! as propoganda not fact!

Kate

I am so against government run health care here in the states.
We  have already seen how well they can mange health care by the horrible care  and the way the v.a. medical system is run.
I have m.s. and Im very concerned about my treatment and care if left in mr.  obummer's hand's
not meant to insight a flamming here, just stating my concerns. But I have alot of concerns about the future of or country all the way around.  With so many jobs biting the dust, the economy in the  crapper. scarey times we are living in!

Just curious....just what ARE your tax rates?   I've always heard taxes in the U.K. are horrendous, but in truth, I have NO IDEA.    I just read this week where our Medicare will be going broke "sooner" than expected, and I'm sure having health care for all citizens is quite costly, but just wondered how much more it will cost workers to pay for everyone's health coverage?  I think those that already get "free" health coverage from their employers would be opposed to paying for universal coverage. 

Do you also get "free" dental care, and other medical services (vision care, etc.)

Is Canada's health care about the same as in the U.K.?

To be honest, I don't know what counts as horrendous! I have always lived and worked in the UK  and so to me it is just normal! I am not a tax epert and so my calcualtiosn my be wrong! But roughly speaking....

We pay nothing at all on the first £6,500 (approx figure, not sure to within a £100 or so!).
Then on the rest we pay 20%.
Anything over about £40,000 we pay 40% but we can claim allowable expenses against that before we are put down as earning that much.
Plus we pay a specific tax called National Insurance on anyhting we earn over £5,400 the rate of that is 12%.

So, as an example, a classroom teacher with three or four years experience earns about £30,000 (US $45,558 at today's rates)

£30,000 minus £6,500 = £23.000, 20% of that = £4,600
£30,000 minus £5400 =  £24,600  12% of that = £2 952
Total tax (if nothing at all claimed against it! =      £7,552

Is that horrendous? Someone (American) once posted on here (to my enormous surprise so she may well have been talking nonsense) that she paid was a teacher and paid 32%. I think the above works out at about 25% overall.

Kate

Interesting Kate.  i was under the impression that the taxes were higher.  As a single RN with no dependents and no deductions (ie a house) I probably pay about as much taxes as a person in the UK.  Let's not forget I also pay about 25% of my health care insurance thru deductions from my paycheck.


From what you've had to say it makes me support the idea of universal health care even more.

Forgot part of the Q.

Dental are is a bit of a controveresial issue. SOme time ago, the govt changed the way they paid NHS dentists and the vast majority of dentists voted with their feet and went private! So you can still find an NHS dentist and they will be just as good as the others, but not everyone can find one! If you can, you pay a contribtuion. My (adult) son went to an NHS dentist near where he lives a month or so ago and paid £45 for a check up and two large fillings. Free for under 19s in education, free for anyone below a certain income level.

Vision, free for anyone under 19, with particularly difficult eye problems, or low income.  Everyone else pays. Depending on what you get, it can be expensive. I just got new glasses. The check-up, gold rimmed frames, varifocal lenses, ultra slim, light-reacting, anti-glare and ant-scratch cost me almost £350.

Things like chiropody, physiotherapy etc can be done through the NHS but you often have to wait as much as several months for the first appointment but after that they could be every week or whatever you need. So they would be free although you might choose to speed things up and pay by going privately!

I couldn't get my band on the NHS as I didn't have co-morbidities. And so I pay for my fills. But I get my annual barium swallo on the NHS and if anything went wrong and I needed surgical intervention, the NHS woudl pick me up and I wouldn't have to pay.

No idea how the Canadian system works. 

I've always gotten excellent medical care but then if I had someone that wasn't working with me on it I got a different doc. We also have to pay $1400  a month for insurance and it doesn't even cover WLS so there must be a better way. I just hope somebody figures out what that way is. I'm sure it'll never be perfect but could use some fine tuning!

I'm an RN and my office mate (also RN) has concerns about a national Health Service which she rants to me!  I wonder sometimes if she isn't so off base.  She says that everything has to be apporved through the NHS and that thye will care quicker for a young person than perhaps someone older.  She makes it sound as if I need something I will be denied in favor of a younger person...that we will be left out to dry.

I like having good insurance...I work for it, and pay for it.  What's wrong with that?  Can you explain how it works?

Sue, basically, all health care "from the cradle to the grave" is provided "free". Of course, that means through our taxes! I don't know whether we pay higher taxes than you, someone asked me that earlier on this thread and i tried to explain our system of taxation to her. There are some thigns we pay for (unless we are low income or still in full time education or over 60), liek we pay a standard cahrge of £6.50 for a prescription, but that could be for a medicine csoting hundreds of pounds! And if we need certain drugs (like thyroid supplements or insulin, or have cancer, all meds are free).

Generally our system works very well indeed. But obviously, as with anything, there are times when it doesnt' and because those times mean someone may die, they get lots of publicity!

The major advantage of the NHS is that no-one is ever turned away! One of the earlier posters on here said how upset she got, working in a clinic, when they had to refuse treatment because someone wasn't insured. But I assume they could have gone somewhere else and got help?? I can't believe anyone in the US would be allowed to die because they were poor!!

Just a factual point - in the UK, a young person and an old person would not be treated any differently! Unless one of them did not have the overall health to survive an op or whatever!

Kate

Kate