Off Topic Politics Thread

[San Tejón]

No because the median in America is that the health care system is good.

It’s awful for those that don’t have the money or don’t plan for their future. But if you have a good job and generally plan ahead it’s great - probably better than here

It mostly comes down to how responsible you are for your own well being. For some reason many people seem to be incapable of looking after themselves though.

Serious questions for you.
1) Do you have a job that is good enough to allow you to spend £20,000 (family cover) every year, on average and not allowing for annual premium increases or increases brought in as a result of over using your policy as a result of a member of your family contracting a health condition that needs regular and ongoing treatment?
2) When your wife had your recent child and your child then received additional medical care, did you reject any help from migrant healthcare workers or are you a hypocrite like my sister, who voted for Brexit, hates migrants but (last I heard) has a German heart specialist overseeing her treatment as well as having had nurses and support staff from multiple countries helping her recover from 4 major operations.

 

[Lemons and Oranges]

Best wishes to your mother in law.

The care in extreme cases in the NHS is absolutely amazing. I recently had a new baby that had to spend some time on the neonatal ward and the care was absolutely incredible.

No doubt there are amazing people in the NHS that do incredible work. I think in emergency situations the NHS still is fantastic.

The problem isn’t the fringe cases though. The problem is the major bulk of the work the NHS does (Carried out, to a very large extent, by non-British staff).

It’s the tens of millions spent on translators, health tourists and time wasters.
It’s the hundreds of millions of pounds wasted on rents and contracts for unnecessary items.

It’s the fact that the genuinely brilliant talent is lost to the private sector because of the horrendous working conditions.

The entire thing needs a complete overhaul. It needs to put British taxpayers and the quality of care and staff (Who are, to a very large extent, not British) above everything else.

It’s far too simplistic to say “in this one instance the care was amazing, that means the NHS is working”.

Added a few explanatory notes for you

 

[Osvaldorama]

Serious questions for you.
1) Do you have a job that is good enough to allow you to spend £20,000 (family cover) every year, on average and not allowing for annual premium increases or increases brought in as a result of over using your policy as a result of a member of your family contracting a health condition that needs regular and ongoing treatment?
2) When your wife had your recent child and your child then received additional medical care, did you reject any help from migrant healthcare workers or are you a hypocrite like my sister, who voted for Brexit, hates migrants but (last I heard) has a German heart specialist overseeing her treatment as well as having had nurses and support staff from multiple countries helping her recover from 4 major operations.

1) Yes. My job provides private medical care anyway, like the vast majority of jobs in America. For every horror story you lefty’s like to peddle, there are millions of Americans with amazing healthcare. The staff there also get paid fantastic wages for doing such difficult work

2) Embarrassing loaded question that doesn’t deserve an answer. I don’t hate migrants. Especially those that are paying their fair share of taxes.
I just want a better deal for UK tax payers. This starts by clamping down hard on money being wasted.

In almost every other country, you have to provide translator etc yourself. You also have to pay for medical care if you use it as a tourist.

The NHS is being systematically abused by millions of people and we are all paying for it.

Why should British people accept that the NHS has become the IHS?

 

[saintrichie123]

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[Osvaldorama]

Well you chose to blame the cost of translators and health tourism, as well as time wasters, while ignoring issues such as the £19.2 billion spent on drugs in 2022-23, an increase of 8% on the previous year. After wages and salaries, that’s the biggest single cost to the NHS, and the rise is partly due to new medicines for diseases such as cancer coming online.

As for Brexit, an estimated 4,000 doctors left the NHS because of the removal of the freedom to work here. That ‘s nearly 3% of the total. Nursing recruitment has shifted from the EU and EEA areas to Asia, which I’m sure makes you very happy indeed.

I will defend the NHS to my dying breath. Despite it being a huge, creaking, inefficient sea of bureaucratic waste, it still happens to be, in my opinion, just about the greatest achievement of humankind in the whole of history, and the benefits to the people of this country exceed the disadvantages a millionfold.

I ignore anything. You are projecting there. Drug prices going up is obviously a large factor. Where have I ever denied that?

The virtue signalling that surrounds the NHS is so funny to me.

Defending something that is no longer fit for purpose doesn’t make you some kind of glorfied martyr. It makes you naive.

The NHS used to work. Times have changed.

 

[Osvaldorama]

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Trust the lefty’s to be on the side of the ****philes. Colour me shocked

 

[ChilcoSaint]

I ignore anything. You are projecting there. Drug prices going up is obviously a large factor. Where have I ever denied that?

The virtue signalling that surrounds the NHS is so funny to me.

Defending something that is no longer fit for purpose doesn’t make you some kind of glorfied martyr. It makes you naive.

The NHS used to work. Times have changed.

As usual, you have no argument other than your own prejudice, and as always, you fall back on insult. Don’t bother replying, I’m done with you.

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

There are chronic illness insurances etc.

At the end of the day someone still has to pay for the treatment. I am not against socialising some of the payments to help people, but England has gone way too far the other way now in my opinion.

We socialise too much of the costs and it means money is wasted. I think it would be good for the nhs if people were charged small amounts for appointments etc.

Even charging for missed appointments and wasting doctors time would be a huge leap forward.

People need to feel the costs before they appreciate what they have imo

I do agree that patients without a Valid reason should have to pay for missed appointments .
At the beginning of each month our local surgery puts up how many missed appointments there have been the previous month .

I was expecting about 15 per month , it varies from about 40 - 50 a month .

Costing a fortune I would imagine , but preventing other patients getting that appt .

 

[shoot_spiderman]

I do agree that patients without a Valid reason should have to pay for missed appointments .
At the beginning of each month our local surgery puts up how many missed appointments there have been the previous month .

I was expecting about 15 per month , it varies from about 40 - 50 a month .

Costing a fortune I would imagine , but preventing other patients getting that appt .

Nudge theory suggests you should advertise how many appointments were kept and gets better results

I have no evidence to support or deny this

 

[shoot_spiderman]

As usual, you have no argument other than your own prejudice, and as always, you fall back on insult. Don’t bother replying, I’m done with you.

What took you so long?

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

Nudge theory suggests you should advertise how many appointments were kept and gets better results

I have no evidence to support or deny this

What’s Nudge theory ?
I’ve never heard of it .

 

[Number 1 Jasper]

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[Number 1 Jasper]

..

 

[SotonOldBoy]

You are fortunate to have a good job that pays into a good health insurance plan. The average cost of a single hip replacement in the US is $22k.

Fortunate seems to say that I am lucky. I learned hard, worked hard, and saved hard and my company paid 50% for all my employees health insurance, like millions of other companies. I did this to make sure my employees were rewarded for their hard work helping us be successful. It's the choices we make.

 

[milton archer]

Fortunate seems to say that I am lucky. I learned hard, worked hard, and saved hard and my company paid 50% for all my employees health insurance, like millions of other companies. I did this to make sure my employees were rewarded for their hard work helping us be successful. It's the choices we make.

Well done

 

[milton archer]

Sorry SOB, pressed send prematurely! Meant to say well done, as one of the older guys on here I love to hear of a successful Saints fan especially if they gained success through hard work.

 

[Osvaldorama]

I do agree that patients without a Valid reason should have to pay for missed appointments .
At the beginning of each month our local surgery puts up how many missed appointments there have been the previous month .

I was expecting about 15 per month , it varies from about 40 - 50 a month .

Costing a fortune I would imagine , but preventing other patients getting that appt .

This is just one of many basic things that could improve things. In this case, the act of paying for missed appointments would hold people accountable for their actions. Why should us taxpayers accept other people wasting our money?

When chilco says “successive governments try to improve things”, he wins my argument for me. Because they are failing MISERABLY to implement even basic improvements.

I have said on here before that I worked inside the NHS. I saw first hand how many problems there are, and how many could be fixed with just simple solutions.

Higher taxes aren’t the answer - at least until we address then spending issues. You guys on here have hearts in the right place but you’re simply wrong.

Thrown even more of our stolen money at things isn’t the solution. Higher taxes aren’t the answer.

 

[shoot_spiderman]

What’s Nudge theory ?
I’ve never heard of it .

Nudge has become synonymous with the use of relatively low cost behavioural change techniques to influence behaviour and decision making, and builds on the work of Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Thaler, and others in the behavioural science field.

This new approach has changed the debate about decision making, arguing that you cannot stop people being irrational because much of human decision-making is outside conscious awareness.

We frequently make decisions, almost instantaneously, influenced by the context and the environment. Why not go along with human nature, allow people to behave naturally, but seek to influence their natural decision-making impulses in order to produce outcomes beneficial for both the individual and society?

Another area where nudge has proved to be effective in healthcare is in the reduction of missed appointments. Missed appointments are a waste of resources, they are estimated to cost NHS England £216 million a year. An amount that it is stated could pay the annual salary of some 2,300 full-time family doctors.

We conducted two randomised controlled trials testing the impact of a re-worded reminder on ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA) rates. In an initial trial of 10,000 patients, a reminder text message, sent in advance, that highlighted the cost of a missed appointment to the health system produced a DNA rate of 8.4 per cent, compared to 11.1 per cent for the existing message

 

[Osvaldorama]

Nudge has become synonymous with the use of relatively low cost behavioural change techniques to influence behaviour and decision making, and builds on the work of Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Thaler, and others in the behavioural science field.

This new approach has changed the debate about decision making, arguing that you cannot stop people being irrational because much of human decision-making is outside conscious awareness.

We frequently make decisions, almost instantaneously, influenced by the context and the environment. Why not go along with human nature, allow people to behave naturally, but seek to influence their natural decision-making impulses in order to produce outcomes beneficial for both the individual and society?

Another area where nudge has proved to be effective in healthcare is in the reduction of missed appointments. Missed appointments are a waste of resources, they are estimated to cost NHS England £216 million a year. An amount that it is stated could pay the annual salary of some 2,300 full-time family doctors.

We conducted two randomised controlled trials testing the impact of a re-worded reminder on ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA) rates. In an initial trial of 10,000 patients, a reminder text message, sent in advance, that highlighted the cost of a missed appointment to the health system produced a DNA rate of 8.4 per cent, compared to 11.1 per cent for the existing message

Very good book about this topic called Thinking Fast and Slow.

One thing to add to this is that humans more acutely feel ‘pain’ than ‘reward’. So actually punishing bad behaviour would make more sense.
This is why I think people should pay a fine when they miss their appointment, unless there is a genuine reason.

To be honest I would actually advocate for a small fee (£5-20) to see a doctor. I think this would weed out a lot of time wasters and free up NHS resources instantly. When I worked in the NHS you would see the same people turning up over and over again wasting doctors time.

People need to realise that the NHS isn’t “free”. We are all paying for it.

We also should definitely start charging for people that end up in hospital due to alcohol/drugs as well. A&E on a Friday/Sat night is ridiculous

 

[StJabbo1]

Nudge has become synonymous with the use of relatively low cost behavioural change techniques to influence behaviour and decision making, and builds on the work of Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, Thaler, and others in the behavioural science field.

This new approach has changed the debate about decision making, arguing that you cannot stop people being irrational because much of human decision-making is outside conscious awareness.

We frequently make decisions, almost instantaneously, influenced by the context and the environment. Why not go along with human nature, allow people to behave naturally, but seek to influence their natural decision-making impulses in order to produce outcomes beneficial for both the individual and society?

Another area where nudge has proved to be effective in healthcare is in the reduction of missed appointments. Missed appointments are a waste of resources, they are estimated to cost NHS England £216 million a year. An amount that it is stated could pay the annual salary of some 2,300 full-time family doctors.

We conducted two randomised controlled trials testing the impact of a re-worded reminder on ‘Did Not Attend’ (DNA) rates. In an initial trial of 10,000 patients, a reminder text message, sent in advance, that highlighted the cost of a missed appointment to the health system produced a DNA rate of 8.4 per cent, compared to 11.1 per cent for the existing message

Practical solutions to ongoing problems.

Missed appoints are charged in the Netherlands. Reminders for all appoints are sent by email and/or text message.

Doctors: Typically €15 for a 15 minute appointment increasing pro rata. Charges for missed procedures at cost. But not universally applied and contentious due to a number of reasons including cost and time

Dentist: "If you cancel within 24 hours in advance or fail to keep appointments without notice, we are unfortunately forced to charge for the reserved time and/or the agreed treatment. The health insurance company will not reimburse these costs."

Hospital: "If you need to cancel your appointment, you must do so at least 24 hours in advance. If you don't cancel your appointment in time, you will be charged a no-show fee of €45.00 per outpatient appointment. This fee is set by the Dutch Healthcare Authority and is not covered by your health insurance policy."