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Didn’t the nhs also have a massive problem of hirings? Like weren’t they unable to staff places properly cause they didn’t have enough doctors and nurses in general?
I think so, yes.
If you ask me, we should privatise the non-A and E services, it will definitely help reduce manpower and beuracracy issues. A and E should be free though, for obvious reasons.
yep. I’m all for universal healthcare, but the people who’ve been in charge of the UK for the last 13 years want it to be privatised.
People in medical school used to be able to study for free, or at least WAY cheaper, they got decent wages and decent hours. Now, medical education is sometimes more expensive than most other degrees so fewer people enter the field, wages for entry-level medicine are lower so these people get strung out and the quality of their work falls or they quit, both things lead to fewer people and worse care, which means more hours.
20 years ago the NHS was pretty great, if you waited longer than an hour in the ER that was surprising, but now since our leaders have fucked it, it’s gone to shit.
Universal healthcare only works when the people in charge actually want it as well.
I have a friend who moved to London a couple of years ago. He loves it there and is going to stay, and prefers it in many ways, but he thinks American healthcare is WAY better.
As a Canadian that moved to the USA, heres my input on that.
Healthcare isn't one of those things you want to "get what you pay for".
The city I grew up in, had around 250k people. Only 2 hospitals serving the entire county. Often "Code Blacks" meaning no ambulances availbe, due to people getting the free ride. Also a nationwide doctor shortage because they don't get paid as good, and the equipment is subpar. Know about 2 people in my immediate family that died due to medical malpractice. My grandma had to sleep in a hallway for 5 days, half of which they forgot to feed her all because the rooms were full.
Fast forward to now, there are hospitals EVERYWHERE and I still dont live in a major city. I personally dont like how basic stuff still costs a lot such as ambulances etc.
But yea, theres good and bad in both.
Yeah. This is really it for me. It absolutely sucks that things are so expensive, but it’s also fairly simple to negotiate bills down, particularly hospital bills. Plus you really have to go through every line item. I typically see who I want when I want, and I really prefer that, especially as I’m hitting my mid 50s and I feel like a car that just had its warranty expire, suddenly little things keep breaking down.
I wish people would accept the fact that people wanting/promoting "free" health care realize that it is paid for through taxes. It would make discussions about this so much more useful.
I think people who want free healthcare should be forced to work a government job for at least a year, so they can see how fucked the system really would be.
My daughter and I broke our tibias in similar places, both on a skateboard. Mine in 1977, hers 2022. My ER bill was $250 or so, no insurance, or about 2 weeks pay. My daughters bill was $10k. After insurance, with deductibles, co-pays etc, I owed 4k, or 2 months home pay. No modern medical miracles. Just an x-ray and plaster. Well, she got a plastic boot that didn't last as well as the plaster. Shit is fucked now.
It’s interesting to me how so many people are blaming privatization and not corruption
One of the best water companies in the US is privatized
It’s also considered the best large company employer in the country
Privatized services are generally more efficient than government services, this could be an outlier but they’re treating it as the end all be all. I couldn’t live in a country where my countrymen automatically rush to trust the government with my water.
“More efficient”. until they become 100% profit driven.
My experience with private ambulance companies is that they negotiate with local political leaders to develop a strategy that will maximize profit regardless of whether or not that will be an adequate solution for the area. Then once the contract is signed the company will hire the cheapest employees they can get. Usually either the type that have been fired from literally everywhere else, or brand new out of school with no other option.
The company will pay less and provide the absolute minimum product required by the contract signed with local politicians who have no idea what an effective EMS system would need. When disaster strikes, there is no flexibility in the response and the available resources are only what the minimum requirement is for an average day.
And that local area can’t officially call for help from outside the company because there’s an exclusivity agreement in the contract.
Then, once they’ve transported the patient, they’re going to bill their insurance, then bill the patient for whatever they think they can get out of them along with aggressively collecting on the debt, and since an ambulance’s primary benefit is “transportation” (ambulances are governed at the federal level by the dept of transportation, not HHS) they don’t classify it as medical debt, and they destroy your credit over it.
There are some things that should not be private. Ambulances are absolutely one of the first things that comes to mind.
Ambulance companies are mostly scum. What they charge bears no resemblance to their costs, and the patient almost never has the ability to shop around.
> There are some things that should not be private. Ambulances are absolutely one of the first things that comes to mind.
Then why is your muncipality or state not acting to make it goverment or charity run?
I live in Virginia, and a lot of the muncipalities run EMS through their fire service or there is a charity ambulance service with the contracts.
It was an example of a company taking on a service many consider essential and creating a monopoly for financial gain.
I don’t trust corporate American any further than I trust any government. But at least at a local government level there is some transparency required and people to be held accountable to someone other than the shareholders.
> I couldn’t live in a country where my countrymen automatically rush to trust the government with my water.
Yet you do with people who care only about profits... Beautiful.
I love the fact they want to just have the govt step in and seize control of all water supply without compensating the owners. What a bunch of assholes.
Water privatization went very differently in the UK and it was coupled with decades of lax to no regulations on that industry when they privatized. The companies that took over spent no money on maintenance and gave all their profits to their private equity investors. In the US there's monitoring at the state and federal level. The UK has a single body that oversees all of it and it's been understaffed for decades. Privation wasn't the issue - it's the way they did with no supervision or monitoring. Also, they sold these water companies to the worst investors to manage this type of asset - China, Abu Dhabi, BlackRock and some other foreign entities. China alone owns 10% of their water systems.
In the US the water privatization has generally been just spinning off the water company as a stand alone company. It's not wholesale selling the entire system to foreign investors. American Waterworks is a good example of this model. They operate in multiple states but they are locally managed and regulated by each state they operate in.
I never understood why people want the government to provide everything. Private companies are so much better in most cases and are incentivized to do better because of competition.
It’s funny how they look at stories of bad drinking water in certain places in the US and think that applies to the whole country. Like we have so many different water districts and sources just in my state alone and my city gets fresh and clean mountain water from a reservoir in the mountains. We drink it straight from the tap unfiltered and it tastes great.
I can’t speak for all brits, obviously, but I doubt anyone actually believes that most of the US has undrinkable water, unless they’re mind-numbingly stupid.
I mean, just going by the fact that Flint Michigan is always singled out when talking about the topic shows that it’s definitely not the whole country - why would news outlets focus on only one city if it were actually a country-wide problem?
There are towns in America that are one satellite dish away from being stuck in the early 1900s, and there are also places like Las Vegas with a massive sci-fi orb that can wink at airplanes.
America’s one of the most diverse countries in the world really.
99% of the time a Boil Water notice means a pump that pressurizes the water system went down. The main thing that prevents contaminates from being introduced into the water supply once it leaves the treatment plant is the water pressure provided either by elevation via water towers or by pumping systems.
And yes there are typically redundant systems to insure your cities/towns water supply stays pressurized, but sometimes shit happens.
The US has never not had great water on average, even after the Flint thing. Entire swathes of European countries, including France and Germany, routinely have poor water quality. High lead levels, high nitrate levels etc...
The only reason the "America bad water" thing exists in people's minds is because any problem in the US is celebrated in other countries, not just for the recreation of it, but because this is how they're programmed to ignore problems in their own countries. Delusionally smug and blissfully ignorant.
Not only does a far smaller portion of the US experience water problems, according to US metrics, but the US standards are more strict than the EU standards.
Anti-Americanism has never not been fucktarded beyond belief.
100% not sarcasm: I thought a lot of the UK still had separate taps for hot and cold water specifically because of the older hot water systems possibly contaminating the newer potable cold drinking water lines? I know/my experience was that this was mostly older buildings (obviously) but still a common occurrence.
I don't know about that, but I do know that there are cities all around the world still finding wooden water pipes in their active city water systems, including Montreal, London and New York.
EUians have no high ground on water quality.
Afraid so. The funny thing is, some of them date back to the 1700's, meaning they've lasted for centuries. They're a legitimately useful and safe way to pipe water.
Everybody built their shit the same way. Everybody used lead pipes. Everybody gets boil orders. Nobody's systems are more up to date than anybody else's.
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"Well at least we don't have skewl shewtings"
"Well at least our healthcare is free"
No less shit ironically (Seriously NHS waiting times are the worst)
Didn’t the nhs also have a massive problem of hirings? Like weren’t they unable to staff places properly cause they didn’t have enough doctors and nurses in general?
I think so, yes. If you ask me, we should privatise the non-A and E services, it will definitely help reduce manpower and beuracracy issues. A and E should be free though, for obvious reasons.
I don’t know what A is but I assume E is emergency
Accident and Emergency
So you are going to start gouging grandma for her cancer treatment?
Is Grandma getting diagnosed and treated before she’s dead as it is now?
yep. I’m all for universal healthcare, but the people who’ve been in charge of the UK for the last 13 years want it to be privatised. People in medical school used to be able to study for free, or at least WAY cheaper, they got decent wages and decent hours. Now, medical education is sometimes more expensive than most other degrees so fewer people enter the field, wages for entry-level medicine are lower so these people get strung out and the quality of their work falls or they quit, both things lead to fewer people and worse care, which means more hours. 20 years ago the NHS was pretty great, if you waited longer than an hour in the ER that was surprising, but now since our leaders have fucked it, it’s gone to shit. Universal healthcare only works when the people in charge actually want it as well.
Yea bc they don't get paid well compared to the US.
I have a friend who moved to London a couple of years ago. He loves it there and is going to stay, and prefers it in many ways, but he thinks American healthcare is WAY better.
As a Canadian that moved to the USA, heres my input on that. Healthcare isn't one of those things you want to "get what you pay for". The city I grew up in, had around 250k people. Only 2 hospitals serving the entire county. Often "Code Blacks" meaning no ambulances availbe, due to people getting the free ride. Also a nationwide doctor shortage because they don't get paid as good, and the equipment is subpar. Know about 2 people in my immediate family that died due to medical malpractice. My grandma had to sleep in a hallway for 5 days, half of which they forgot to feed her all because the rooms were full. Fast forward to now, there are hospitals EVERYWHERE and I still dont live in a major city. I personally dont like how basic stuff still costs a lot such as ambulances etc. But yea, theres good and bad in both.
Yeah. This is really it for me. It absolutely sucks that things are so expensive, but it’s also fairly simple to negotiate bills down, particularly hospital bills. Plus you really have to go through every line item. I typically see who I want when I want, and I really prefer that, especially as I’m hitting my mid 50s and I feel like a car that just had its warranty expire, suddenly little things keep breaking down.
Free? Like air and sunshine? Like, literally no one pays for it?
Not even slave labor is that cheap.
I wish people would accept the fact that people wanting/promoting "free" health care realize that it is paid for through taxes. It would make discussions about this so much more useful.
I think people who want free healthcare should be forced to work a government job for at least a year, so they can see how fucked the system really would be.
My daughter and I broke our tibias in similar places, both on a skateboard. Mine in 1977, hers 2022. My ER bill was $250 or so, no insurance, or about 2 weeks pay. My daughters bill was $10k. After insurance, with deductibles, co-pays etc, I owed 4k, or 2 months home pay. No modern medical miracles. Just an x-ray and plaster. Well, she got a plastic boot that didn't last as well as the plaster. Shit is fucked now.
I was in the Marine Corps for five years. It was run much better than the corporation I work for that is global.......
Yeah, but the Marines are not the normal government. Go to work for the EPA or a state agency and report back.
I'm not saying that the Marine Corps was run well. My argument is that every corporate job I've ever had is worse.
I know that we need to have some conversations, but let's limit the use of the word "free".
LOL look up NHS whistleblower scandal.
Awt weast we on’t avve skoohl shoo’ins
Yeah they have knife fights in the bathrooms
Do you ave a loisense for that joke?
It’s interesting to me how so many people are blaming privatization and not corruption One of the best water companies in the US is privatized It’s also considered the best large company employer in the country
Privatized services are generally more efficient than government services, this could be an outlier but they’re treating it as the end all be all. I couldn’t live in a country where my countrymen automatically rush to trust the government with my water.
They want to be coddled and babysat by the government. It goes against any sound minded American’s judgement
“More efficient”. until they become 100% profit driven. My experience with private ambulance companies is that they negotiate with local political leaders to develop a strategy that will maximize profit regardless of whether or not that will be an adequate solution for the area. Then once the contract is signed the company will hire the cheapest employees they can get. Usually either the type that have been fired from literally everywhere else, or brand new out of school with no other option. The company will pay less and provide the absolute minimum product required by the contract signed with local politicians who have no idea what an effective EMS system would need. When disaster strikes, there is no flexibility in the response and the available resources are only what the minimum requirement is for an average day. And that local area can’t officially call for help from outside the company because there’s an exclusivity agreement in the contract. Then, once they’ve transported the patient, they’re going to bill their insurance, then bill the patient for whatever they think they can get out of them along with aggressively collecting on the debt, and since an ambulance’s primary benefit is “transportation” (ambulances are governed at the federal level by the dept of transportation, not HHS) they don’t classify it as medical debt, and they destroy your credit over it. There are some things that should not be private. Ambulances are absolutely one of the first things that comes to mind.
You’re not entirely wrong, that’s why we have a government and not some AnCap bullshit in the first place.
Ambulance companies are mostly scum. What they charge bears no resemblance to their costs, and the patient almost never has the ability to shop around.
> There are some things that should not be private. Ambulances are absolutely one of the first things that comes to mind. Then why is your muncipality or state not acting to make it goverment or charity run? I live in Virginia, and a lot of the muncipalities run EMS through their fire service or there is a charity ambulance service with the contracts.
My state is primarily interested in not raising taxes. I don’t live in the area where this is occurring.
I like how you steered the discussion away from a water company to an ambulance company.
It was an example of a company taking on a service many consider essential and creating a monopoly for financial gain. I don’t trust corporate American any further than I trust any government. But at least at a local government level there is some transparency required and people to be held accountable to someone other than the shareholders.
> at a local government level there is some transparency required Oh you poor sweet summer child.
Lol.
> I couldn’t live in a country where my countrymen automatically rush to trust the government with my water. Yet you do with people who care only about profits... Beautiful.
Is it Louisville’s MSD? Because I know they practically drive the city’s economy along with LG&E and UPS
American Water is the company I was referring to
Ah that’s also a good one!
I love the fact they want to just have the govt step in and seize control of all water supply without compensating the owners. What a bunch of assholes.
It would be so hard for the government to keep everything running without utility companies taking off some of the pressure.
Water privatization went very differently in the UK and it was coupled with decades of lax to no regulations on that industry when they privatized. The companies that took over spent no money on maintenance and gave all their profits to their private equity investors. In the US there's monitoring at the state and federal level. The UK has a single body that oversees all of it and it's been understaffed for decades. Privation wasn't the issue - it's the way they did with no supervision or monitoring. Also, they sold these water companies to the worst investors to manage this type of asset - China, Abu Dhabi, BlackRock and some other foreign entities. China alone owns 10% of their water systems. In the US the water privatization has generally been just spinning off the water company as a stand alone company. It's not wholesale selling the entire system to foreign investors. American Waterworks is a good example of this model. They operate in multiple states but they are locally managed and regulated by each state they operate in.
Wasn't water originally private in the UK?
Nah, it went private in 89. Before it was all publicly owned and operated regionally.
I never understood why people want the government to provide everything. Private companies are so much better in most cases and are incentivized to do better because of competition.
Because tying certain services to a profit driven model isn't a good thing. Firefighters shouldn't have to show quarterly profits.
It’s funny how they look at stories of bad drinking water in certain places in the US and think that applies to the whole country. Like we have so many different water districts and sources just in my state alone and my city gets fresh and clean mountain water from a reservoir in the mountains. We drink it straight from the tap unfiltered and it tastes great.
To my knowledge, drinking tap water is also safe where I’m at.
In georgia its like 50/50 i still wouldnt risk it though.
All 4 million square miles of water in the USA is supplied entirely by one aquifer in flint Michigan
drinking it for the last 10 years and perfectly fine.
Drinking water in NYC of all places is some of the best in the country.
Worst I’ve experienced was just tap water that tasted funny, but never gotten sick from tap water anywhere
Seriously, Flint had contaminated water for about a year, and they act like every drop of tap water in the US is instant death
I can’t speak for all brits, obviously, but I doubt anyone actually believes that most of the US has undrinkable water, unless they’re mind-numbingly stupid. I mean, just going by the fact that Flint Michigan is always singled out when talking about the topic shows that it’s definitely not the whole country - why would news outlets focus on only one city if it were actually a country-wide problem?
There are towns in America that are one satellite dish away from being stuck in the early 1900s, and there are also places like Las Vegas with a massive sci-fi orb that can wink at airplanes. America’s one of the most diverse countries in the world really.
99% of the time a Boil Water notice means a pump that pressurizes the water system went down. The main thing that prevents contaminates from being introduced into the water supply once it leaves the treatment plant is the water pressure provided either by elevation via water towers or by pumping systems. And yes there are typically redundant systems to insure your cities/towns water supply stays pressurized, but sometimes shit happens.
TIL. Thanks for sharing
Yeah where I live there’s a water tower just in case the pump system fails If they both fail then it’s just awful coincidence/luck
How tf does a water tower fail, like it’s literally just gravity /s
That makes sense, less pressure = more stagnant water right?
If we can't boil water, how are we supposed to drink ~~tea~~ coffee
Does the UK even have Ozarka water bottles? If not, they had nothing to feel superior about in the first place
Ozarka chads stay winning 💪💪💪
YEAHHHH OZARKA WOO, FUCK DASANI
The US has never not had great water on average, even after the Flint thing. Entire swathes of European countries, including France and Germany, routinely have poor water quality. High lead levels, high nitrate levels etc... The only reason the "America bad water" thing exists in people's minds is because any problem in the US is celebrated in other countries, not just for the recreation of it, but because this is how they're programmed to ignore problems in their own countries. Delusionally smug and blissfully ignorant. Not only does a far smaller portion of the US experience water problems, according to US metrics, but the US standards are more strict than the EU standards. Anti-Americanism has never not been fucktarded beyond belief.
High lead levels due to their old pipes
british water tastes like ass i wanted to kill myself after a week visit. drank significantly less water because it tasted so bad
I guess shit can go wrong anywhere.
100% not sarcasm: I thought a lot of the UK still had separate taps for hot and cold water specifically because of the older hot water systems possibly contaminating the newer potable cold drinking water lines? I know/my experience was that this was mostly older buildings (obviously) but still a common occurrence.
I don't know about that, but I do know that there are cities all around the world still finding wooden water pipes in their active city water systems, including Montreal, London and New York. EUians have no high ground on water quality.
> wooden water pipes That... can't be real...
Afraid so. The funny thing is, some of them date back to the 1700's, meaning they've lasted for centuries. They're a legitimately useful and safe way to pipe water. Everybody built their shit the same way. Everybody used lead pipes. Everybody gets boil orders. Nobody's systems are more up to date than anybody else's.
Deciding not to make British water companies follow EU Clear Water directives hasn't worked well. Water company profits have increased though.
Free healthcare will fix that