CDR: RE: why should it be trusted?

[Trei, Peter]

> ----------
> From: 	Ken Brown[SMTP:k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk]
> Reply To: 	k.brown at ccs.bbk.ac.uk
> Sent: 	Wednesday, October 25, 2000 11:21 AM
> To: 	Trei, Peter
> Cc: 	Cypherpunks; 'Nathan Saper'
> Subject: 	Re: why should it be trusted?
> 
> "Trei, Peter" wrote:
>  
> > Nathan, have you ever actually looked at socialized medicine? It's
> > fine for some things, but not for others. Illnessess which can be
> > cured and which curing will return a person to productive labour
> > get treated - after a while. Illnessess which strike late in life and/or
> > require expensive treatment get much shorter shrift. 
> 
> This isn't really true.  The NHS tends to be quite good at big stuff,
> serious interventions. The UK is also quite good for fixing small 1-off
> problems (the poor wait in line, the less poor just pay same as anywhere
> else). What it isn't so good at is chronic but not life-threatening
> problems. In other words, just the ones "which curing will return a
> person to productive labour". Of course these are also the exact same
> health problems that private health insurance is worst at.
> 
I've read various stories (mostly in New Scientist and The Economist)
about people being refused expensive chemotherapy by the NHS.

> > Why do you
> > think Austin Power's teeth were a running joke?[...]
> 
> Dentistry in the UK is almost entirely private & sometimes used as an
> example of why publicly provided healthcare is supposed to be better!
> Except for the poorest, we pay for it out of our own pockets (as adults
> anyway, there is a certain amount of public provision for children).
> Same applies to opticians & so on. 
> 
I stand corrected. The fact remains that bad teeth are part of the 
American stereotype of Britons.

> There are a lot of problems (particularly local ones in London because
> nationally set budgets don't reflect the cost of provision here - the
> district I'm in has over 20% shortfall in the number of nurses on the
> staff because they aren't paid enough), but on the whole I think you'll
> find few Brits who would give up the idea of the NHS.  After all we live
> longer than you do, on average (assuming you are USAn), are slightly
> poorer to start with & spend a *lot* less on healthcare per head, public
> & private combined. In fact you spend almost as much on "socialised"
> medicine as we do, far less cost-effectively.
> 
... and you have a continuous brain drain of doctors to the greener fields
of the US. 

> Ken
> 
Peter Trei