We found a local hospital where we were staying. I was seen reasonably quickly, the hand was cleaned and bandaged, a shot was received, and I was sent on my way … without being charged.
Yes, the service wasn't "free" — the British taxpayers footed it. But it was good service, and a tremendous relief (especially given my financial status at the time, and on the trip) to know that, if injured, my concern could be about my health, not my balance sheet.
(Meanwhile, on the hypothetical UK equivalent of Fox News, the chiron is reading "FOREIGNERS SPONGE OFF BRITISH TAXPAYER — TOURISTS DEMAND FREE HEALTH CARE".)
The NHS has is problems, and you can probably find countervailing anecdata to my own or the poster's below, but it seems that most of the problems I've heard of stem from the costs of the NHS are clearly externalized — government budget line items — and thus subject to debate and discussion and partisan wrangling, while the costs of our own system, even under the ACA, are largely internalized (employers and employees and insurance companies doing little dances in the dark), and therefore subject to far less scrutiny (and, when such scrutiny is mandated, subject to much partisan posturing).
Nor is it clear that an NHS / nationalized medical care system is necessarily the best target. There are advantages (and disadvantages) to a Canadian-style single-payer system.
We've taken a step forward under the ACA. But as long as what people most worry about when sickness or injury strike is not "Will I get better?" but "How will I pay for it?" (and as long as so many other people's main worry is not "Will they get better?" but "Why the hell should I care?") then I think we have a long way to go.
Reshared post from +Les Jenkins
I really wish we'd go to a single payer system comprised of the best parts of other countries' systems. This is how healthcare should work.
An American doctor experiences an NHS emergency room
You know it’s going to be one of those days when one of the first tweets on vacation inquires about the closest hospital. Victor, one of my 11-year-olds, had something in his eye courtesy of a big …