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« on: March 06, 2016, 12:42:41 PM »
I live in Scotland so our primary healthcare is free at point of use, prescriptions are free for everyone; we have three, possibly four can't remember about wales, National health services. I'm not sure how our taxes compare to tax in the US but through one tax or several I pay in to the NHS so it's not free as such, I'm more than happy to contribute to the care of people who don't have the same means as I do.
Our NHS is also partly funded by private hospitals and insurance firms who pay to use NHS facilities, this can be contentious if private patients get seen first. Private insurance typically gets you seen first and covers tertiary non essential as well as primary care but in practice people will generally go to an NHS hospital for unplanned medical treatment and convalesce in a private hospital.
I earn over the threshold for assistance with dental care or sight aids but I don't have a need right now for full blown medical insurance so I have a cash back scheme I pay in to every month that pays back between 75 - 100% of expenses ranging from dental care to osteopathy, they get far more from me than I claim.
You do hear of extensive treatment delays and horror stories about the NHS and to be honest if I had the funds and had a rare expensive to treat medical condition I would get insurance but it's still an institution service that provides a comprehensive if budget restricted service. My concern about privatisation in our NHS would be that any form of 'free' healthcare provision would be driven by a profit derived funding model as opposed to the budget based model we have now.
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