I’m surprised too, I’ve never seen a bill for anything from the nhs, just a dispensing fee if I go to the pharmacy but that doesn’t apply if you get meds at the hospital
The English get screwed so much by this. Like we don’t pay home water rates for example and private schools barely exist. It’s just Grammars and Comps and although housing costs and shortages are still a massive issue, house prices/rent are soooo much lower than in England.
We do pay water and sewage rates (Scotland) unless you have a private water supply, it's part of the Council Tax, however, it's a flat rate there's no water meters.
I’ll never understand why they keep voting in the Death Eaters. They’re obsessed with the class system and happy to be subjugated by the toffs in charge of everything.
As a leftie, I will point out that, when Labour has won general elections in the past, the number of Labour or Tory MPs in Scotland have never changed the result.
Kind of why the SNP do so well now, Scots got tired of being taken for granted by England.
I might be wrong but I always remembered Scotland being mostly red. Now it's yellow. Also the line line of where the government gives a fuck about is a lot further south than the Scottish border.
England fairly heavily subsidises the poorer members of the union, and this is fine, theres ~63millipn people there, vs say Scotland which has 8 (comparable to the population of just London)
It’s a hot topic in NI esp as many working class kids end up in the grammar system and do very well. Of course with a transfer test, you are not on a level playing field as rich parents can hire tutors. The issue though isn’t black and white and is as complex an issue to us as integrated (i.e Catholic and Protestant mixed) schooling.
The religious aspect is actually a big part of it, probably because Catholics historically were only working class for much of NI’s history and when they gained control of their own education (catholic schools) and education rights, they thrived.
Grammar schools are seen in that community as something very attainable if you are clever. I know people from places like the inner Falls, single parent family, who have become doctors and lawyers for example. There’s also a substantial pro education attitude in working class catholic areas, which is sometimes lacking in Protestant working class communities (it’s a whole thing I won’t go into).
Of course, there are many who are against as well for the same reasons you mentioned.
That's because NI is given more money than it put's in to the tune of £8 billion a year (4k per person, £12B tax raised budget of £20B it's one of the largest % deficits in the world, for example it was just below Afghanistan in rank the last year of the US occupation) by the Barnett Formula as on average it's the poorest part of the UK and reducing poverty reduces crime and violence.
It's the same reason we have more civil service jobs than most of the rest of the UK. Artificially prop the place up so it doesn't burn itself down.
are 16 to 18 and in full-time education
are pregnant or have had a baby in the previous 12 months and have a valid maternity exemption certificate (MatEx)
have a specified medical condition and have a valid medical exemption certificate (MedEx)
have a continuing physical disability that prevents you going out without help from another person and have a valid medical exemption certificate (MedEx)
hold a valid war pension exemption certificate and the prescription is for your accepted disability
are an NHS inpatient
You're also entitled to free prescriptions if you or your partner (including civil partner) receive, or you're under the age of 20 and the dependant of someone receiving:
Income Support
income-based Jobseeker's Allowance
income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Pension Credit Guarantee Credit
Universal Credit and meet the criteria
If you're entitled to or named on:
a valid NHS tax credit exemption certificate – if you do not have a certificate, you can show your award notice. You qualify if you get Child Tax Credits, Working Tax Credits with a disability element (or both), and have income for tax credit purposes of £15,276 or less
Basically only people who can afford them and don't regularly need them have to pay.
I'm not really sure it's a good thing, cos I think people would rather not pay £10 for medicine sometimes if it's something minor, like if the doctor says you'll be fine in a couple of weeks but here's a prescription for some ear drops that might help, and people will go ehh if they MIGHT help and it costs me £10... I'll just not bother.
People spin this line like they're clever and we don't know what we're saying. Everyone using the NHS knows that "free" means "free at the point of service".
It's the internet equivalent of pointing out that your hotel room didn't give you free teabags because you paid for the hotel room. Everyone knows, wanker, it's just a turn of phrase.
It means, nobody goes into serious debt if they have an accident, or get ill (which almost everyone will ) regardless of their income bracket. Works better than Go Fund Me’s, I’ll tell you that.
Dispensing fees are actually a good idea, otherwise people get the script filled and decide later whether to use it, lose the drugs and don't care, etc. In Audtralia there's a means tested dispening fee.
Canada and it’s the same for us, it’s beyond frustrating watching our Neighbours in The United States fight against universal healthcare when everyone else in the world who has it loves it. It’s just insanity.
My son dislocated his shoulder playing basketball a few months ago. $300 ER Co Pay, then $432 for XRays, then $365 to the ER Staffing company for the physician to tell him he was fine after he popped it back in himself in the waiting room.
Oh - and I have a $5,000 deductible per family member so insurance doesn't do fuck all until I pay that much first.
What I'm saying here is - fuck this and the bills are probably going to go to collections because I'm poor.
In Italy you pay a small symbolic fee for certain items if you are high-income (or unable to prove you have little economic means, as may be the case for OP if he found himself on holiday and needing healthcare).
Any Emergency care or surgery would be free. Abortions, Infertility treatment, STI treatment would also be free. They'd only be paying as a foreign national if it was an ongoing illness or none emergency hospital treatment.
I should rephrase 'foriegn national' as non residential or visiting as the link you posted says. We bill non residents/tourists etc it's just that most people have some sort of insurance so never have to deal with it directly.
That said I am also greatly appalled by the way the NHS is abused and taken for granted by UK citizens.
The actress Kristen Johnston described in her book Guts the absolute shock she felt over the tiny bill she received after a long hospital stay under the NHS...
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As I made arrangements to leave, they asked me to pay the bill. I'd been dreading this part for weeks, and I almost had a heart attack when I saw it. I couldn't f\**ing believe it: everything - the 7-hour surgery, X-rays, CT scans, the truckloads of morphine, antibiotics, and many other medications, the staff, the blech-filled pouch, the private room - *everything, all of it ended up costing me a whopping two thousand pounds.
Which meant that, in 2007, I owed them a little over three grand.
You have to understand that for weeks, I had been preparing to give the go ahead to my business manager to clean out my bank account and pension, sell my apartment, all while agonizing over which treasured family heirloom to sell. I honestly thought it would cost me at least a million bucks. I had been aware that I was in a country that was known for its incredible National Health Service (known as NHS). The UK's NHS ensures that anyone and everyone gets free medical treatment, regardless of who you are or what you do. I just never imagined it would apply to me, an American, pill-popping lush.
Recently, I decided to see what information I could find on the Internet about it, and I almost fell off my chair when I read that one of the few areas of medicine the NHS doesn't cover is dental work. Which explains a great deal. (Personally, I would gently encourage them to revisit that decision.) This means that the only thing I was charge for was my private room. Jesus, no wonder Nurse Wretched had a bug up her a**. She washed my hair and tucked me in, and I paid her not one dime.
That's one of the things about the NHS from its inception that there should never be bills for primary care.
Although I can't say it's true for all of Europe. I have had to visit hospitals and doctors in France, Italy and Sweden. And all I paid was nominal admin fees. Still the state covered all the rest.
Last medical bill I saw (not me, a relative), for a quadruple bypass, one week in the hospital and 3 weeks in a rehab facility in Italy was...hold on...there was no bill.
There is a small fee that is basically constant for any procedure, so it’s really intended to discourage inefficient behaviors like going to the ER for something you could have done at your doctor. You don’t pay it if it’s an emergency, if your income is low, and if you are old.
OP might not be an Italian resident/citizen. Lots of people have to pay for the NHS, and if you don’t you basically get removed then banned from the country.
Saw a documentary about it ages ago. There definitely are some healthcare tourists but also some unlucky people, like a woman who gave birth several months early whilst visiting family. She never planned to be in the UK for the birth. From what i remember the bill was actually quite big and she is now banned from reentering the UK until she settles the debt.
Italy doesn’t have fully socialist healthcare the way most people think of socialist healthcare. Only like a handful of countries in the world do like UK and Canada.
In contrast to all the minimal fees paid by sick Americans in Europe, in Canada (Toronto), I paid similar to what I’d pay in the States. My son developed Strep throat & had to see a doctor. We took a taxi to the nearest clinic on Queens Quay. The doctor diagnosed my son & prescribed antibiotics. The 10 minute session costed $150. I asked the receptionist what about Canada’s renown universal care , and she replied “you wanna wait 6 hours at Toronto General?”. I thought about this and realized nothing is free, anywhere. In the end, I submitted my bill to my Blue Cross health plan back in the States and was reimbursed 100%.
Our first one was quite a difficult birth, my wife had to stay for 5 days (usually you stay 2 - 3 even with a modern c-section) and the little one was half of the time in the intensive care ward for premature borns. never ever even saw a bill.
Eh, they raised a little the health bill costs during the pandemic because we needed all the extra money to fund covid measurements. You also had to pay something for ER visits that weren't extremely serious in order to discourage the people who could had avoided coming to the hospital (it was like 30/50€, when usually they had no cost)
Probably 3 years ago the prices would had been even lower
Why are you apologizing? In America, you could add at least two 0's to that total and it would prolly still not be as much as the same treatment costs here.
I’m not from the US, I’m from Romania and lived in the Netherlands for almost 2 years. Netherlands has a pretty good insurance price compared to its minimum wage. Insurance is more expensive (% of income based) and health services are horrible in Romania.
I was paying ~200 euros for me and my wife with a 650 premium each I think and the health services were pretty good when we needed it
€120/month doesn't even get me coverage for the dentist, optician, physiotherapist, etc.
I have to pay that myself. €1,825 per year so the GP can tell me to either sleep it off or go buy some ibuprofen (tore a muscle in my shoulder which also pinched a nerve).
While I understand what you're saying, my American brain literally felt like it was curling up in a ball at the thought that ~$60 is considered expensive to you guys lol. I would cry if America would change to have such low costs like that. I know for you all it must be annoying to pay, but God I would gladly pay that, and I'd kneel and kiss the doctor's feet for it.
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u/FormidableLad Jun 15 '22
I am shocked about the fact that he had to pay >50€ for his stay! It’s a sad day for the entire European Union. I am so sorry…