TAKE ME OFF WELFARE!

First of all I'd like to say I'm pleased for you all that your wife is on the road to recovery.

As for healthcare in the UK, then yes, aswell as paying the usual taxes out of our salaries, then we also pay National Insurance contributions and that goes towards the healthcare system.

For a procedure like your wife had, it would all have been paid for and treated at the local hospital with the follow up appointments being carried out by the relevant consultants there also.

As to why it can't work in the US, to be honest there's no reason why it can't as far as I can see, maybe people in the US will begrudge paying for a service out of their salary that they might never need to use?

 

There is probably some truth in that, but then, for me anyway, it's not so much that point, but the fact that going through the government automatically digs many pot-holes that is inherent in bureaucracy; IE red tape by the googles, rules by career bureaucrats with little to no oversight, and the added cost due to the previous 2 points.

I remember when health insurance was for major problems, not a case of the sniffles as it is today. There was much less bureaucracy and hassle and it was much less expensive - even considering the difference in the value of a $ 'tween then and now.

 

Here in the UK the NHS is being pushed to breaking point by the government and their cutbacks. On the outside, in the media they say they're proud of the NHS but at the same time they're deliberately putting a lot of hospitals in debt, then asking private healthcare firms, often run by conservative backers, to take them over.

In 5 years time the NHS won't exist and what was once a proud institution will have been replaced, and that's exactly what the government wants behind closed doors.