This article will focus on the National Healthcare service (NHS) in the UK where I live. I think it is greatly underfunded and that some extra money would make it run much better, but I also think that it gets overused for things that it shouldn’t have to deal with like little cuts or bumped legs.
Anyway, the numbers. The UK is ranked as the 18th best country for healthcare by WHO on the 2020 rankings, a measly 19 places above the USA. The UK government invests around £135 billion a year to run the NHS which increases every year, which if you refer to my first article, is a drop in the ocean compared to how much the Americans pay. If it was to be scaled up to the size of the population of the USA it would still come in at about 10% the current total cost for healthcare a year for Americans.
This cost comes to us the people as part of our taxes and the national insurance that we all pay only when we are working. As a student I don’t pay for these until I start working for my money instead of relying on the government student loans. A small portion is also collected by the cost of prescriptions (currently £9 per collection) and dental care but these too don’t need to be payed by everyone. If you are a child or low income or old, then these charges don’t apply to you and you get it for free.
This does however mean that the average wait time to see a GP is 10 days. Most GP’s will have urgent appointments where you just need to drop in if it is serious (mental health crisis, infections getting worse, whatever that is bad but not A&E bad) which may involve sitting for an hour or 2 to be seen and no choice in doctor. But the knowledge that I can see a doctor that day when I am really ill, and I won’t have to pay for anything but the drugs they give me to make me better is such a relief.
When I dislocated my shoulder, I walked in and they had relocated it and put me in a sling in under an hour without an appointment. Yeah I then spent the best part of a day in A&E but I also wasn’t going to die and they gave me something for the pain as soon as I got there so was happy to be patient whilst people that had heart conditions or broken bones sorted before me. The total cost to me was £9 for the anti-inflammatory’s and I had 2 x-rays, a couple of doctors and nurses look over me, some oxygen whilst they relocated my shoulder the second time (it wasn’t perfect the first time), and a small part of my dignity as I couldn’t put a shirt on properly for a few weeks. I was then provided with follow up physiotherapy so that now I don’t have any lingering side effects.
The reason we can do this, is that the government is the major insurance company so they can dictate the price of drugs and procedures. You can have private healthcare, but people only tend to get that if they have long term problems or it is for end of life comfort. Nobody asks who you are insured with and no calls to the government asking if they would pay for something. It’s an all-inclusive package and it comes out of the tax we already pay. If we went fully private, there would be riots about the loss of the NHS and how much we would then have to pay for healthcare.
Now this is how most of the top ranked countries for healthcare run their systems. It doesn’t let you have much choice, but it doesn’t put you in debt to find out that you have broken a bone and it needs setting or you can’t get the prescription as they cost too much. I’m not sure what I will write next about but I will try and make it interesting or at least simplify what we need to know. Take care, wear a mask, stay safe.
Nic