[user104658]

Originally Posted by Northern Monkey

And how long do you think the NHS is going to be viable?It’s unsustainable.
It’ll have died on its arse by the end of the century.It’s inevitable with an ever rising population.The whole model was designed for there to be less need for it over time not more.
There’s only so far you can raise taxes and throw money at it before it outgrows the ability to fund it.
Then we’ll all be on some kind of insurance based system.We’re just not there yet.

These are problems that could and should be tackled if there was any inclination to do so, though. The NHS could function perfectly well if it was well managed... There is no real government drive to do so. It would be funded perfectly well if it wasn't horrendously over-used because of people not understanding their own health or knowing how to properly care for themselves (e.g. running to the GP for every cough and cold, or mismanaging hydration with the flu and ending up in A&E, or calling ambulances / going to hospital for all sorts of minor injuries that could be patched up at home). But there's no real focus on improving that, either.

It is sort of a massive hulking beast that would do better if broken down further into smaller scale local (but cooperative) health services but, the fact remains, if it wasn't for the government quite clearly INTENDING to sell it off by making it seem unmanageable, it could still be a well oiled and exemplary health care system with a few tweaks.

The taxation thing is another issue of course. People don't seem to realise just how much is paid out in insurance based systems. If the government whacked 2% onto everyone's taxes and gave it all to a (well managed) NHS it would do wonders for the service but people would go nuts over it - apparently not realising that private insurance would cost most normal working people a LOT more than a 2% tax increase, and along with it, always the risk of it going wrong and ending up bankrupt or simply unable to pay for certain treatments . These things do happen in the US. And there are far more examples of the poor, elderly and vulnerable falling through the cracks... Especially when it comes to things like mental health.

Its obviously incorrect to call the US a **** hole. It IS a great country with many great things going for it. But it's health care record, for a first world country, is pretty shocking and varies wildly from state to state in direct correlation with wealth. There are some states where infant mortality rates are nearly 1 in 100 which is as bad as some literally starving third world nations.

So yeah... If you're university educated, middle-earning-and-upward then the US can be a great place to live. My wife's uncle and his wife recently moved semi-permanently to Texas (plan to stay for 10 years then play it by ear) and they absolutely love it - but she's a renowned University lecturer with multiple PhD's and a published author and they bought a 5 bedroom house with several acres of land / a swimming pool, etc...

It's not quite the same story for another guy I know, who came over on a University exchange for a year when I was at Uni. Even though he IS a graduate - his life now basically involves plastering on a fake grin as a waiter, because he knows that if he doesn't get tipped well he can't pay his rent and will be on the street. And if he gets ill, he's ****ed.

Its a system that works well for some, at the expense of many others. And no, that's not uncommon in the modern world... It's basically how the entire global economy works... But supposedly the greatest country in the world failing to care for its own native-born citizens on something as basic as fundamental healthcare is a total shambles.

[Yuki Maru Hoshi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

There are some states where infant mortality rates are nearly 1 in 100 which is as bad as some literally starving third world nations.

Where in the world did you hear that? O_o The one I found says X in 1000... not 1 in 100.

Infant mortality rate in the United States as of 2017, by state (deaths per 1,000 live births)*
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...thnicity-2011/

Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths per 1,000 Live Births)
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indi...2:%22asc%22%7D

There is some serious misinformation in this thread, but I can't really fault anyone here for picking up on what they hear because it sounds like you guys have to deal with some of the same filters we deal with daily in terms of outside information coming in. I would trust you guys for UK information before I would trust my own research just because I know how there's always a skew to things, so you really don't get an accurate picture but either someone's opinion or an informal narrative of things... when the Tohoku earthquake happened in Japan, English news was not just worthless but unreliable... I followed the news through Japanese media sources and that was pretty much the only way I knew whether or not my close friends there would be irradiated or not.

Also, for Texas, it is one of the most easiest places to live. You can literally buy so much land and housing for dirt cheap. You don't need 5 PhD's to live here, and in many cases not even a college education and medical is pretty affordable, even out of pocket. We don't have income tax either and our state keeps a budget and we have a strong economy to boot. When we had Hurricane Harvey, Houston was almost entirely inundated, but Texas picked up a lot of the bill to pay back FEMA (Federal disaster relief)...

The US is far from a sh1thole and our healthcare is some of the best in the world (I wouldn't say the best because I'm not an encyclopedia ). Keeping in mind too the private insurance we pay and for all the charities that funnel money through the system, that allows for much of the research that has done good in many countries across the world... that's not even up for debate. I mean Trump sucks and Congress sucks, but much of the country is doing much better economically speaking even without their intervention. (Edit) We've had to manage for decades now one way or another, so it's not like America isn't resilient.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Maru

Where in the world did you hear that? O_o The one I found says X in 1000... not 1 in 100.

Infant mortality rate in the United States as of 2017, by state (deaths per 1,000 live births)*
https://www.statista.com/statistics/...thnicity-2011/

Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths per 1,000 Live Births)
https://www.kff.org/other/state-indi...2:%22asc%22%7D

There is some serious misinformation in this thread.

Yes the figures I saw were also /1000 but the stats I saw earlier were quoting 9.x/1000 for a couple of states which is close enough to 10/1000... Which is 1 in 100? Those links quote 8.5 and 8.9 in 1000 for Alabama and Mississippi which is lower than what I saw before, but only marginally, and way below the wealthier US states and every other "1st world" country (which tend to sit 1 in 200). It is similar to a number of struggling African nations. That quite clearly demonstrates a quite serious wealth divide in the US as a whole and I'd be very interested to see the stats when it comes to low income vs. medium to high income in wealthier states, because I'd hypothesise based on this that there IS a significant difference. Those stats don't seem to exist, however, or at least aren't readily available.

I also quite clearly stated that it's a great place for those that are "doing OK"... I didn't say that you need 5 PhD's. Middle income and above - and especially those who are in any job that comes with built in insurance - it's a perfectly functional system. However, it's a system that leaves behind a large chunk of the population... But that's how capitalism works, I guess. But it's also a system that adds the stress and anxiety of worrying about funding (even when there turn out to be no problems securing it) at times when that's the last thing people should have to be thinking about.

Basically there is abundant economic dense that decent, well managed universal healthcare across the board results in better outcomes than insurance based models. But pharma and medical care are huge industries that a lot of people have an interest in so they're pushed, hard. I mean ffs... We're at the point where they have American parents wetting their pants over bloody CHICKEN POX with massive amounts of peer pressure to "buy" yet another vaccine. Chicken pox!

[Yuki Maru Hoshi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Yes the figures I saw were also /1000 but the stats I saw earlier were quoting 9.x/1000 for a couple of states which is close enough to 10/1000... Which is 1 in 100? Those links quote 8.5 and 8.9 in 1000 for Alabama and Mississippi which is lower than what I saw before, but only marginally, and way below the wealthier US states and every other "1st world" country (which tend to sit 1 in 200). It is similar to a number of struggling African nations. That quite clearly demonstrates a quite serious wealth divide in the US as a whole and I'd be very interested to see the stats when it comes to low income vs. medium to high income in wealthier states, because I'd hypothesise based on this that there IS a significant difference. Those stats don't seem to exist, however, or at least aren't readily available.

I also quite clearly stated that it's a great place for those that are "doing OK"... I didn't say that you need 5 PhD's. Middle income and above - and especially those who are in any job that comes with built in insurance - it's a perfectly functional system. However, it's a system that leaves behind a large chunk of the population... But that's how capitalism works, I guess. But it's also a system that adds the stress and anxiety of worrying about funding (even when there turn out to be no problems securing it) at times when that's the last thing people should have to be thinking about.

Basically there is abundant economic dense that decent, well managed universal healthcare across the board results in better outcomes than insurance based models. But pharma and medical care are huge industries that a lot of people have an interest in so they're pushed, hard. I mean ffs... We're at the point where they have American parents wetting their pants over bloody CHICKEN POX with massive amounts of peer pressure to "buy" yet another vaccine. Chicken pox!

I was exaggerating with the 5 PhD's Ok, I'll look into the infant mortality rates, because I'm curious what is causing the more negative numbers. My hope with medical reform is that they regulate it to stop the price gouging (for the uninsured). I don't mean price fixing. I just mean reasonable regulations like you can't charge %200,000 percent margin for something silly like an IV cable and adding billing regulations so that pricing is more transparent so that people can very easily price shop. (increasing competition)