Originally Posted by Lancaster' post='982266' date='Aug 19 2009, 02:32 PM

If you come over to the UK and get sick, I promise we'll take care of you.

Interesting to see that there are some programmes in place to catch people who fall between the cracks - we don't really hear about that over here. Another example of the media (and politicians) trying to polarise the debate to a nice easy choice between good and evil!

Originally Posted by mjfloyd1' post='982315' date='Aug 19 2009, 01:11 PM

Has the NHS always been a 2 tier system or is this relatively new?

I do know of a patient - he was in our local newspaper - Abdullatif Muhammed (?spelling?), who was an Iraqi citizen who immigrated to the UK around the time of the gulf war. He was diagonosed with "nerve irritation" in Iraq and when he arrived in the UK he was found to have a pelvic/abdominal mass. In the UK he was diagnosed as having a sacral cordoma and the best treatment for it is proton therapy. Proton therapy is not available in the UK, and he came to the US to my town where we have a proton therapy treatment center. However, his mass was biopsied here and it was found to actually be Ewings Sarcoma - luckily the treatment for it is also proton therapy.

I've also dealt personally with a nurse from Canada who came here for proton therapy to a sinus tumor.

There are obviously some cracks in the other systems as well.

Originally Posted by mjfloyd1' post='982315' date='Aug 19 2009, 01:11 PM

Has the NHS always been a 2 tier system or is this relatively new?

I do know of a patient - he was in our local newspaper - Abdullatif Muhammed (?spelling?), who was an Iraqi citizen who immigrated to the UK around the time of the gulf war. He was diagonosed with "nerve irritation" in Iraq and when he arrived in the UK he was found to have a pelvic/abdominal mass. In the UK he was diagnosed as having a sacral cordoma and the best treatment for it is proton therapy. Proton therapy is not available in the UK, and he came to the US to my town where we have a proton therapy treatment center. However, his mass was biopsied here and it was found to actually be Ewings Sarcoma - luckily the treatment for it is also proton therapy.

I've also dealt personally with a nurse from Canada who came here for proton therapy to a sinus tumor.

There are obviously some cracks in the other systems as well.

Originally Posted by swajames' post='982330' date='Aug 19 2009, 01:23 PM

Misdiagnosis happens everywhere, in fairness. The major point relevant to this specific case is that the NHS will pay for the patient to get treatment overseas if needed (and it will be rare that treatment is not available in the UK, but widely available elsewhere). More likely than not, it was the UK NHS paid for this patient to get the proton therapy he needed.

As for the two tier system, it's been that way for years but it's definitely growing. As an example, BUPA, one of the main UK private health care providers and insurers, was founded over 60 years ago and offered private insurance from day one.

As you say, no system is perfect, but the UK system does work well. It is very far removed from the way that it's sometimes been described in the US in recent weeks.

Originally Posted by swajames' post='982330' date='Aug 19 2009, 03:23 PM

Misdiagnosis happens everywhere, in fairness. The major point relevant to this specific case is that the NHS will pay for the patient to get treatment overseas if needed (and it will be rare that treatment is not available in the UK, but widely available elsewhere). More likely than not, it was the UK NHS paid for this patient to get the proton therapy he needed.

As for the two tier system, it's been that way for years but it's definitely growing. As an example, BUPA, one of the main UK private health care providers and insurers, was founded over 60 years ago and offered private insurance from day one.

As you say, no system is perfect, but the UK system does work well. It is very far removed from the way that it's often been described in the US in recent weeks.

Originally Posted by mjfloyd1' post='982476' date='Aug 19 2009, 03:36 PM

Bringing up the misdiagnosis was meant only to say that it would have been a travesty for them to travel the great distance especially if the tumor had not been one that was treatable with proton therapy.

NHS did not pay for the treatment. All care was donated by local physicians. The local hospital wrote off the hospital charges. A group called Hoosiers Care then arranged for him to stay at Jill's House which is a place built specifically for the patients to stay while undergoing proton therapy, and then they arranged for him to move into an apartment.

Originally Posted by Lancaster' post='981867' date='Aug 19 2009, 08:14 AM

It is interesting to watch the arguments here about Health Care (and really fascinating to see the "liberty" card being played again!).

However, you don't know diddly about the UK Healthcare system, so please stick to what you know. Here in the UK we have been seeing a pile of crap from "Debaters" in the US using the NHS to bash the principle of government run healthcare. It's actually been quite sickening and disappointing to see and I don't think the vast majority of American citizens are dumb enough to swallow it.

Here is how it actually works:

Everyone who is earning money pays some contribution to the cost of the NHS. A large number of us still choose to pay for private health insurance because we may want an operation done more quickly, or have more choice about where we go for treatment.

We still pay into the NHS scheme because we care enough about each other to do it. We want to know that people less fortunate than ourselves can get a reasonable level of treatment when they need it. We also have somewhere to go if the insurance companies get jiggy with us (pre-existing conditions etc).

You can, if you really try, twist all this into some sort of liberty issue. But's here the bottom line.

The UK chose this system as a country. You can choose to have something similar or not, depending on how most of you vote.

The NHS is very far from perfect but most people who use it are generally impressed.

Do people over the age of 65 get dialysis free at the point of use here? Or do you have to have medical insurance?

At the end of the day, the decision you reach collectively in the USA will not be about liberty or freedom. Democracy will decide the issue. After all, everyone is free to vote and all votes are counted equally. Aren't they?

Originally Posted by Alpine White Girl' post='974152' date='Aug 12 2009, 04:27 PM