People never value what they don't pay for: it's just the way folk are.
That is completely ridiculous in view of the example of the little-known country called the United Kingdom. People don't pay for healthcare directly, and they don't abuse it. This thread is ridiculous.
GPs do get a lot of people who don't really need to be there, and it'd be nice if those people would use telephone triage systems like NHS Direct, or go and see a pharmacist. Having said that, an alarming number of people die from preventable illnesses because they "don't want to bother a doctor", so it does work both ways.
While England does have prescription charges only about 80% of people on prescription meds pay that charge, because there's a wide range of exemptions.
There has been research showing that a lot of people don't comply with medication. Interestingly the severity of the illness doesn't make much difference, and neither does having to pay or not pay for the meds. A surprising number of organ transplants fail because people don't comply with the regime of medication. This occurs in the UK (free meds and free surgery) and in the US (expensive meds, expensive surgery). It's made clear to the patients what the result of not taking the meds will be, and the patients know they're lucky to get an organ, and etc etc.
tl;dr I agree that most people don't abuse the UK health system. And the cost isn't something that enables people to abuse it or not.
This small fact seems to evade most people's comparative analyses and renders them largely void.
You know, when Aneurin Bevan was setting up the NHS, he said the cost of operating it would go down over time as the population got healthier...
If you're familiar enough with the UK and the US, and health systems in both countries and can state with certainty that no one abuses the system: congratulations. You're way more cosmopolitan than I.
But I don't believe that abuse doesn't happen. It's just contrary to human nature.
Abuse of health care happens in the US. Maybe this thread is ridiculous, but there you are.
People never value what they don't pay for: it's just the way folk are.
One can see this on a micro level: buy your teenager a laptop. Make sure you buy the extended warranty: you'll need it.