Medical Treatment in USA

Capt Lightning said:
HollyDolly, you're quite correct that in England , prescriptions for over 60's are free, but they are free to all ages elsewhere. Same with eye tests. At most Scottish hospitals, parking is free. At Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, a multi storey car park was built, financed by a philanthropic trust. There's also a regular bus service to the hospital.
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That's my point Capt, it's NOT free here, we subsidize that for Scotland & Wales, but don't get it ourselves... our parking charges are astronomically high, and what about Free University tuition fees? which our young don't get here.., and free or almost free personal care for the elderly, again not available here... ?


As for prescription costs... all Prescriptions for anyone age 16 or over until 60, costs over £8 in England per item ( not per prescription but per item) ... not in Scotland tho'..NO-one pays for a prescription there.. until they're over 60...
I don't want to get into Politics, but God help you all if wee jimmy cranky gets her way for independence, the Scots will realise just how much we English taxpayers have been cushioning them all these years at the expense of ourselves and our kids education..

Naturally I'm not blaming you, the irony being that you're not a Scot, ( albeit that you live there) and I am... but living in England as I do I had to pay my own daughters university tuition fees and also contribute to Scottish kids as well as every other Englishman ..
 
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HollyDolly, Although I spent most of my life in England, my parents were Scottish and I did live there. Mother said that she wished the family had settled with her folks in Glasgow, and I said, Oh dear, we might all have been Weegies!

I sometimes wonder where 'home' is - I've lived several places, so I just say "British" and 'wherever I lay my hat, that's my home'. So, till I moved back to my spiritual and ancestral homeland, I had to pay for prescriptions (work paid for eye tests for IT staff) and I paid for my son and two daughters university education. Fortunately elder daughter was awarded a full grant to cover her Phd.

Yes it's unfair that the UK has different arrangements, but it's not unfair that Scotland, Wales and N.I., get the benefits - it's because that the English residents dont!
 

911 said:
I was talking to a few men older than me a few weeks back at a social club that I belong to. They were talking about the same thing as us, medical costs. The one gentleman stated that the government doesn't take care of the seniors in this country because they want us to die. He goes on saying that Seniors have served their purpose and have now over-stayed their welcome. When we die, the government saves money, especially if one of us is being treated for cancer.

You know, maybe he has something there.
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Having worked in healthcare with the elderly in several different setting such as dialysis, long-term care, I disagree with that. Especially since the 2003 Medicare drug coverage changes. Medicare with a supplement puts 65+ at about the best overall covered group in the country. Those who are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid along with Medicare hardly pay anything at all.
 
Capt Lightning said:
HollyDolly, Although I spent most of my life in England, my parents were Scottish and I did live there. Mother said that she wished the family had settled with her folks in Glasgow, and I said, Oh dear, we might all have been weegies
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oiyou-200x200.jpg
how very dare you, I'm a Weegie :p....😆


Sorry for going off topic, folks... 😊
 
Which part? My mother's family was from Denistoun. Father's was from near Melrose.

Getting back to the subject, of our friends in the village, one is from Kent and the other from (I believe) Michigan. Both had worked in Asia, but on returning to the UK, had considered re-locating to the U.S. The major reason for not going was the cost of health insurance because of existing problems.
As an aside, although now a UK resident, our American friend is now being hounded by the US tax people as I gather that the US tax system is based on citizenship, not residency.
 
Thank you all for answering my query. It has made me appreciate how lucky we are here in the UK. I have a penfriend in America. Her husband was involved in an accident which resulted in long-term health problems. Then she was diagnosed with cancer, and needed surgery and chemo. She was forced to return to work before she had fully recovered, to pay off the medical bills.
 
There is another side of this. Most of us probably know at least one person who qualifies as a medical over-user.

A neighbor had very good medicare and gap insurance. Let me tell you, she used that insurance like it was a job to do so. Although she was generally healthy (had easily managed type 2 diabetes but no other health problems), she was a lonely, very elderly woman whose friends had died, moved, or evaporated from her life due to conflicts.

Her resultingly empty social calendar started to fill with various doctor appointments. She considered her doctors to be "friends," and while it's important to have trusting relationships with medial personnel, she became truly wasteful of their time and our Medicare tax doctors. The docs didn't turn her away because, after all, they were getting paid to see an unchallenging patient that they shot the breeze with for ten minutes. (I accompanied her on a couple of visits which is how I know what went down.)

She hit doctors at least twice a week for ten years, I kid you not. Various abuses of the system are legion, whether it's over billing, overuse, or outright fraud.
 
StarSong said:
There is another side of this. Most of us probably know at least one person who qualifies as a medical over-user.

A neighbor had very good medicare and gap insurance. Let me tell you, she used that insurance like it was a job to do so. Although she was generally healthy (had easily managed type 2 diabetes but no other health problems), she was a lonely, very elderly woman whose friends had died, moved, or evaporated from her life due to conflicts.

Her resultingly empty social calendar started to fill with various doctor appointments. She considered her doctors to be "friends," and while it's important to have trusting relationships with medial personnel, she became truly wasteful of their time and our Medicare tax doctors. The docs didn't turn her away because, after all, they were getting paid to see an unchallenging patient that they shot the breeze with for ten minutes. (I accompanied her on a couple of visits which is how I know what went down.)

She hit doctors at least twice a week for ten years, I kid you not. Various abuses of the system are legion, whether it's over billing, overuse, or outright fraud.
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You made me remember Star, my mother in law, for years would keep taking different drugs. She lived in a nice retirement center, and doctors would come there to see her. Kept telling her about "drug interaction" and how not to keep taking all the different meds. Knew her well, as she used to live with us. She was pretty much healthy as a good horse if you know what I mean.

But, she thought the doctor could do no wrong. She wound up in the hospital. I told the charge nurse, bet its drug interaction. She spent 60 days in - they let her out one day - put her back in for some more time and the nurse then warned us about one of the drugs she'd been given that caused kidney problems. Sure enough, she started turning yellow. When we raised cane and got her out, "drug interaction" or "medical misadventure" as they so humorously put it was the diagnosis...of course medicare had paid for all of it!

She died many years later.

But
 
Liberty said:
You made me remember Star, my mother in law, for years would keep taking different drugs. She lived in a nice retirement center, and doctors would come there to see her. Kept telling her about "drug interaction" and how not to keep taking all the different meds. Knew her well, as she used to live with us. She was pretty much healthy as a good horse if you know what I mean.

But, she thought the doctor could do no wrong. She wound up in the hospital. I told the charge nurse, bet its drug interaction. She spent 60 days in - they let her out one day - put her back in for some more time and the nurse then warned us about one of the drugs she'd been given that caused kidney problems. Sure enough, she started turning yellow. When we raised cane and got her out, "drug interaction" or "medical misadventure" as they so humorously put it was the diagnosis...of course medicare had paid for all of it!

She died many years later.

But
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Was your mother in law on a drug for Diabetes called metformin because I have a girlfriend that was taking 2000mgs for two years and now she has stage 3 kidney damage.
 
Robert59 said:
Was your mother in law on a drug for Diabetes called metformin because I have a girlfriend that was taking 2000mgs for two years and now she has stage 3 kidney damage.
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Nope. She didn't have diabetes or anything else like that, as far as I know of. She did retain fluid, so probably one med was a water pill. The med that they gave her in the hospital, which was a different med caused the yellow jaundice. The nurse had alerted us to that after the doc prescribed.
 
Air ambulance here is $20,000 now. I think an ambulance runs $800 or $900. Hell it may be a $1000 by now. I forget what mom said dad's ambulance ride cost. Might have been $1500. I don't know without asking her again. It's $2000 here with ins. for the ER. $500 of which goes to the ER doc. Then the radiology bill is another $500 on top of the remaining $1500 of the ER bill. Which may have gone up this year.

I'll find out soon enough. Regular office visits are in the neighborhood of $200 a pop. If you don't have insurance usually they give you a cheaper price. For example...with ins. back home my office visit was $85. Without it...it was $55. They pad it for the ins. purposes. Which I think is a bunch of BS. The docs can turn you away for surgery if you don't have insurance cuz God forbid they not get their money for their summer home in New England or wherever the hell they hang out.

The FMLA was supposed to be to help keep people from losing their ins. benefits but because I can't afford to have short term and long term disability coverage...I got listed as STD for this rib and now I may lose my ins. & have to start over next year. One way or another they're gonna screw you for every dime they can get out of you.
 
Robert59 said:
Was your mother in law on a drug for Diabetes called metformin because I have a girlfriend that was taking 2000mgs for two years and now she has stage 3 kidney damage.

OMG @Robert59 they wanted to give me that crap. I'm glad I couldn't take it. Sorry she's having troubles.
 
hollydolly said:
But would they call something like a sprain in an old or poor person.. an emergency Ruthanne?..I'm sorry I'm only trying to learn it just seems so complicated to me.. thanks all for answering my questions.. We're so lucky here, and I hope none of you believe president trump telling you our hospitals are like Beirut..LOL...we may have long waits to see consultants and hospital emergency rooms are shutting down at a rate of knots but we do get the best treatment at source ..
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Holly, if an elderly person sprains an ankle in the U.S. or wrist, say, some people will call and ambulance to transport them to the E. R. for and x-ray as the elderly often wind up with a fracture instead. There is insurance to cover these ambulances, when they are called through our 911 system and not a private ambulance service. We do have a system whereby when 911 is called, paramedics and police arrive, assess the situation and determine as to whether the patient needs to go to the hospital.
 
40 or 50 years ago, employers gave their full time employees, major medical which covered everything from an ingrown toenail to crisis medicine. Several insurance companies from different states issued this insurance. During an economic down turn, insurance companies decided they were losing money with this system. Now, ins. companies are very powerful in the country, so many employers dumped full time employees and were not bound to give part timers any benefits at all. Fair? No? So along came the talk of a government run system. AFC came along, but one still had to meet a criterion to get meaningful benefits. Some still pushed for insurance companies to become competitive and also be able to cross state lines for care. Not happening. Cleveland Clinic has a terrific medical system whereby, anyone can get first rate care for anything and pay only according to ability to do so. Works like a charm, but a lot of doctors eschew this as it is not profitable for them personally. So, it comes down to dollars and cents. In NJ, we have a Medicaid program where most doctors in our major hospitals accept it and we do benefit from excellent care. Not all states are equal, however. As a nurse, I feel every citizen should be able to obtain the best care medically and no one worth their salt should ever refuse to render same to a patient. Prescriptions are outrageously expensive and until someone reins all these corporations vis a vis Wall Street in, well, the beat will just go on.
 

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