Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease

Re:Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease by andyking on Thursday January 05, 2012 @05:04PM (#3430772)

It's quite regular that local media in Britain will report on a fundraising drive to send someone (often with a rare condition, sometimes not) to America for treatment because the NHS won't pay - here's an example just from today, where a family's trying to raise ~$100,000: http://www.moorlandsradio.co.uk/2012/01/help-katie/

It's not because our health service is poor - in fact, it's excellent for general healthcare and I literally trust it with my life. The country (as in you, me, everyone who pays taxes) sadly just can't afford to treat very expensive edge cases, or send people for highly expensive experimental procedures, without jeopardising the sustainability of the service for others. Conversely in America, if you have the money, you get the treatment.

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Re:Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease by parfe on Thursday January 05, 2012 @05:43PM (#3430939)

In America, insurance companies call that an "experimental procedure" and they wouldn't cover it either.

Meanwhile for every case you can find for someone traveling to America, there can be an identical case found for someone traveling to Europe.

http://www.kulr8.com/news/local/Cerebral-Palsy-Fundraiser-10...

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Re:Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease by michaelcampbell on Friday January 06, 2012 @08:08AM (#3433124)

> Meanwhile for every case you can find for someone traveling to America, there can be an identical case found for someone traveling to Europe.

You've found 1, which hardly equates to "every".

Do you have any actual data? I'd be curious to see what the real difference is between "them" coming "here" vs. "us" going "there".

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Re:Stephen Hawking to turn 70, defying disease by parfe on Friday January 06, 2012 @09:48AM (#3433447)

Sure, check wikipedia on medical tourism. An order of magnitude more people leave the US than enter to seek medical treatment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_tourism#United_States

My point in finding one was that sensational stories about fund raising for medical treatment make easy news filler. Linking to any of them is meaningless!

America has a medicore health care system. We excel in some experimental treatments, and have some great medical centers for those with money.

Meanwhile we rank equal to Cuba on life expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expec...

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