Thread: What next ?
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Old 07-05-2009, 12:55 PM
Charles Charles is offline
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Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 10,348
Combwork

Quote:
Originally Posted by Combwork View Post
What you're describing is the way the NHS was originally set up in the U.K in 1948; cover for medical emergencies, extras available for those who could afford them. This is why in the main, Doctors and Specialists were not employed by the NHS, they worked for the NHS under contract. Part of the deal was they did NHS work for free as long as they had access to NHS equipment for their private work.

The problems began when medical emergencies was expanded to include things like Cancer, long term heart problems etc. that were incurable in 1948, therefore not included in the costing. Once these treatments became available to private (fee paying) patients, the public demanded that they be available for everyone. You can see their point; would you accept seeing the Boss's wife being cured of cancer while your wife died of it?

I think this is basically how it should be; if you wanted a private room with fresh flowers in a vase and top quality food it was available, but you had to pay extra for it.

Now, alongside medical centers and NHS hospitals with good medical care for all, private medical care and private hospitals complete with TOTL equipment are available to those who can afford it, funded either by private insurance schemes or for those with very deep pockets, paid for when needed.

As things stand, the NHS gives very good medical care, but has become terribly top heavy; beurocrats of all descriptions outnumber medical staff. This can change, but it's a hot potato; effectively you'd be asking the beurocrats who presently milk the system to devise ways of making it more efficient and put their own jobs at risk.

Could the above be improved and made to work in the USA? I don't see why not.
I don't think that you can appreciate just how corrupt things are in the USA.

Chas
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