SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - My recent experience of the UK National Health Service (long post)

clive bradbury · 10-20-09, 11:32 AM

Believe it or not, I am intelligent enough to be aware that I pay for NHS care via 'hidden' taxes. However, if you include US state taxes, the relative rates of taxation vis-a-vis UK/USA are roughly the same.

Unsurprisingly, the Sun story is inevitably going to criticise the NHS. Yet the man in question has been offered two operations (free) via the NHS system. It is hardly their fault that he does not look after himself and thus is unfit for surgery. What are they going to do? Risk his life on the operating table?

Purely as a matter of interest, how would an insurance company in the USA approach his case? Would a 50 year-old smoker with high blood pressure (presumably the former led to the latter) even get insurance in the first place?

10-20-09, 11:32 AM	#12
clive bradbury Captain Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: stoke-on-trent, UK Posts: 492 Downloads: 105 Uploads: 0	Believe it or not, I am intelligent enough to be aware that I pay for NHS care via 'hidden' taxes. However, if you include US state taxes, the relative rates of taxation vis-a-vis UK/USA are roughly the same. Unsurprisingly, the Sun story is inevitably going to criticise the NHS. Yet the man in question has been offered two operations (free) via the NHS system. It is hardly their fault that he does not look after himself and thus is unfit for surgery. What are they going to do? Risk his life on the operating table? Purely as a matter of interest, how would an insurance company in the USA approach his case? Would a 50 year-old smoker with high blood pressure (presumably the former led to the latter) even get insurance in the first place? Last edited by clive bradbury; 10-20-09 at 02:06 PM.