Comment by autoexec
2 years ago
> f you’re truly broke, there’s Medicaid
Which you still might not qualify for, and may not get even if you do qualify for it (https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/apr/15/john-ol...)
> 90% of Americans are insured.
Which doesn't prevent nearly 40% of americans from being forced to put off needed medical care because of the expense they're still subjected to. (https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/20/americans-put-off-health-car...) Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy.
Again, with the caveat that I much prefer the British system...
> nearly 40% of americans from being forced to put off needed medical care
Hard to interpret UK NHS waiting-time figures, especially given the political weight given to them, but these[0][1] paint a picture of 6 month to >1 year waiting times.
0: https://www.boa.ac.uk/resource/boa-statement-on-nhs-app-show...
1: https://www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-...
> Medical debt is the leading cause of bankruptcy
Medical debt for non-elective treatment feels barbaric, although digging into the figures (2m personal bankruptcies a year, 60% medical) gives 0.3% of the US population declaring medical bankruptcy a year, possibly going up to 1% if you do fancier maths involving households vs people.
It might be worth stressing for US audiences that the UK NHS waiting times quoted are for elective non life threatening procedures; osteoarthritis surgeries that decrease pain for people already with a degenerative joint disease, hip and knee replacements, etc.
The long wait times, 22 weeks mean average, > 63 week in 8% of extreme waits, are regrettable but not indicitive of waiting for urgent emergency life threatening required non elective procedures which are relatively prompt and immediate for the most part.
I don't think your portrayal captures the reality of this well. Again, generalizing about numbers when it's such a hot political issue is difficult, and it's super-easy to cherry-pick, but take three NHS trusts in the South East, which for non-Brits is the rich part of the country -- I've chosen these three because I'm somewhat familiar with the hospitals themselves, and they're all big enough to have multiple specialties. I suspect if anything they understate rather than overstate the problem.
0: https://www.myplannedcare.nhs.uk/seast/royal-surrey/
1: https://www.myplannedcare.nhs.uk/seast/oxford/
2: https://www.myplannedcare.nhs.uk/seast/buckinghamshire/
For each specialty, there's a waiting time, which is the time between you seeing your local doctor and then seeing a specialist, and then there's a waiting time given from when the specialist refers you for a treatment -- they need to be added together. Cardiology is 17+21 weeks, 10+12 weeks, and 25+28 weeks, urology is 12+18 weeks, 18+23 weeks, and 25+20 weeks. Orthopedics (for your osteoarthritis example) is at 17+24 weeks, 22+46 weeks, and 20+25 weeks.
> not indicative of waiting for urgent emergency life threatening
Hospitals in the US can't turn you away if you show up presenting urgent, emergency, life-threatening symptoms either, and I suspect those are not the types of medical care that people in the US are generally putting off for cost reasons (although I'm sure there are a few cases where they are).
1 reply →
I’ve used emergency care in the US and U.K. waiting in the U.K. was half an hour, in the US was 4 hours. The U.K. was of course free, the US was $2k
Same problem, same prescription.