Comment by bojangleslover | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bojangleslover | Hacker News Reader

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This is par for the course in the UK. Not saying it's good enough, but it's truly par for the course.

NHS budget in 2021 was about £135B or ~$180B in USD, which is offered to the entire UK population ~67M.

Medicaid budget was $458B in 2020, offered to part of the US population (~84M).

So we have UK: $180B for 67M people US: $458B for 84M people

The only difference is that $458B is provided solely by the 270M Americans who, in exchange for their medicaid funding, are banned from using it.

So basically, we have an NHS in America but it's only for the people who don't pay for it. Then we have an entire secondary subsidization going on with health insurance which some comments above have pointed out is often tens of thousands per year.

One of the most crooked things I've ever seen.

May be relevant to this, that money probably goes a lot further in the NHS than in US system. Staff are paid less, hospitals run on lower budgets, less unnecessary tests, no billing systems, less beaurocracy (NHS has its serious IT issues, but not probably to the level of US healthcare) etc . The NHS is badly under-funded at this point, and more and more Brits resorting to private healthcare to jump waiting lists, and wards in hospitals are not exactly posh, and getting appointments is harder, and you can see things creaking. But I think I'd still rather be treated by the UK's system than USA, unless I was extremely lucky with the right kind of US healthcare insurance, lived near a particularly good hospital etc... If the US would simply adopt our system that everyone deserves treatment no Qs asked, I think that would make life in the US a lot better, for everyone actually, not just low income people.

I live in Romania and often wonder why there isn't more medical tourism...a good way to have a holiday and get a diagnosis.. I've had surgery done here, maybe I was lucky because it was dirt cheap but the hospital stay was beyond basic but then again I didn't stay long... I stayed the winter in Egypt and heard the same thing, cheap prices, good service... wierd not many seem to be taking advantage of combining travel and doctors...

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