SicKo- Seen it?

[DanaC]

Why did you add that picture? What relevance does it have to the topic, or indeed your response?

[DanaC]

In fact...why did you add this picture, 3 minutes after you acknowledged Bruce's request that you post images in the images section of the Cellar?

There are times when posting an image into a thread that isn't actually for images, works and is funny/appropriate/engaging. You choices of when to include a picture are neither funny nor appropriate, nor engaging.

Given that you have been explicitly asked not to do so and yet are continuing so to do, leads me to conclude that you are in fact taking the Right Royal (piss).

I hope I'm wrong about that. I don't like being unpleasant towards newcomers, but right now I trust your intentions just about as far as I'd throw them.

I don't have negative or bad intentions for anyone or anything in here, and I am sorry that anyone would feel this way.

[DanaC]

Okay. Fair enough.

[Ibby]

What the FUCK does a church in fucking Haiti have to do with universal healthcare, michael moore, sicko, or anything in the fucking world, for that matter, james?

if you got one long hard look at the healthcare system in Haiti, you'd probably stop by a church yourself when you were in Haiti. There is nothing for FREE in Haiti. No welfare, no free ER visits, nothing of the sort, go to the hospital and they expect to be paid right there on or before you walk out the door.
Here is something totally off topic. I was at the post office in Port au Prince a few months back, and didn't have a pen. In most, if not all, US post offices, they would usually just let you use a pen "real quick" like. I asked the lady at the counter, if I could use a pen for a second, she said, "I'm sorry you'll have to purchase one outside." In front of the Post Office there are vendors selling anything and everything. Just a quick example of how nothing is free in Haiti.

[Ibby]

Again, what does that have to do with a random-ass picture of a fucking church?

ok, since your not educated enough to figure it out.
There are several missionary groups from the US and Canada that come to Haiti on "missions" of aid and assistance. Missionaries are from churches!!!! At least, most of them are. They are church organizations.

[DanaC]

James. The point about Haiti is a good one. Would have been better had you just made that point.

[glatt]

[Cicero]

Just let it go...it's a photo. I didn't see how the video in this thread connected to the topic either- but I guess that's the direction of this thread now....it's turned into- Be a postwhore.
That's how people would like to destroy the topic and intentionally kill the thread.........

Dana since you live in Yorkshire- what is your experience of Universal Healthcare? Do you have to work out whether or not you can pay rent or buy your medication? I know people here have to make that choice and it really sucks for them. (they are not rich and are on assistance) Especially when their gov. assistance is sliced into a third of an already low- unlivable payment.

[DanaC]

My experience of universal healthcare, is that it works more often than it doesn't. There are gaps. Dentalcare for instance, is not in a good way. There is a shortage of 'NHS' dentists, most of them take private only patients. If you do find an NHS dentist your treatment is not free, it is at a vastly subsidised rate. If you are unemployed, elderly, juvenile, or a full time student with a low income, you don't pay at all.

My personal experience of dental care is that I have generally received excellent care, most of which has been free. Some of it I've had to pay for. But the cost hasn't been high. For the next work I need doing, it will cost a lot. This is because I am dentalphobic and require full sedation. This will be the first time I've sought serious treatment whilst not exempt from charges : total cost £180. That is the NHS subsidised rate. Private it would cost about £650.

Prescriptions have a charge. Like it showed, £6.75 per item or appliance. You can buy pre-pay certificates: £90 per/year which then allows you unlimited prescriptions without charge. If you are unemployed, under 16, of retirement age, or suffer from one of a list of chronic conditions, you pay nothing.

I had to access care at A&E three times in the last 12 months. On one occassion, the place was full and I was in there for nearly three hours. That time included three lots of waiting, two consultations, an x-ray and wound dressing. Later that month I received a bill for £6.75 to cover the prescription charge of the pain killers they gave me to take away. The medication I took at the hospital and the dressings etc were free.

Sometimes the system doesn't quite work. A drug gets deemed to expensive and the PCT won't authorise its use, or NICE won't authorise its adoption by NHS services. Stuff that once upon a time would be considered the NHS job, now sits under stuff like social care and that can create problems. But mostly? It works.

On very rare occassions, I have waited a couple of days until payday before getting a large prescription (like 3 or 4 items). In truth I could have asked the pharmacy to allow me to pay later in the week and they'd almost certainkly have let me because they are attached to my own doctor's surgery. If a charge gets to silly proportions, you can phone a helpline and purchase a 3moth prepay certificate. AS long as you are going to do that the same day (which gives coverage straight away) your chemist will allow you to tick the prepay box.

I am also, frankly, avoiding the dental treatment until I get my next student loan payment. No doubt this will result in my needing even more treatmtn as the teeth degrade :P But...if I wasn't such a coward and was able to have it done without sedation it would only cost me about £45 and if I didn't have that? There is emergency dental care available through the dental hospital who will treat first and bill later: but it is literally just dealing with an abcessed tooth type treatment.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by DanaC

I had to access care at A&E three times in the last 12 months. On one occassion, the place was full and I was in there for nearly three hours. That time included three lots of waiting, two consultations, an x-ray and wound dressing. Later that month I received a bill for £6.75 to cover the prescription charge of the pain killers they gave me to take away. The medication I took at the hospital and the dressings etc were free.

I'm assuming from "wound dressing" that A&E is like an emergency room or an urgent care center in the US. The experience would be virtually the same here in the US, except that the bill would be about 100 times greater.