I live in the USA and always wonder what awesome companies or organizations are we missing out on because people are tied to their employer due to healthcare.

I know at least one couple close to retirement that is waiting until one of them can get onto cobra for the months before they can get onto Medicare. (They just budgeted for cobra in their planning.)

I like how the Aussies do it (or at least how they did it last I looked): basic public healthcare plan provided by the government, then supplemental plans offered by the employer as a benefit.

Aussie here. Very few employers here offer health plans. Medicare is more or less like NHS in the UK. If you earn more than a certain amount, you have to pay for your own private health insurance. It is significantly cheaper than in the US. Source: myself

> If you earn more than a certain amount, you have to pay for your own private health insurance

Do you fall back into Medicare if you start earning less afterwards?

You don’t actually have to pay for your own, but you are taxed an extra 0.5% if you don’t and earn above a certain amount. So in practice rather than pay the additional tax, people get private healthcare. If you then start earning below the threshold you can cancel the private healthcare and go back to the public system.

Slight correction, you have to pay a levy if you earn over ~90k/year and don’t have private hospital cover.

"How will we pay for universal healthcare???"

By massive inefficiencies being removed from our economy.

Also, it'll literally be cheaper if you look at any other country that has implemented it.

There will be a huge wave of innovation whenever the USA implements nationalized healthcare.

I think the current housing crisis in the US should lead to a new social pact, but I don't see any movement towards one.

I just don't understand why citizens of such a rich country would want to live so precariously.

yeah it isn't just that it creates stress, bankruptcy, and suffering, it's genuinely an impediment to upgrading jobs and entrepreneurship.

This was my thought exactly (I’m Swedish). It sounds so brutal, and it was not just her own but her entire family’s!

Then she would have waited 10 months for a CT scan instead of 10 days.

No, lung cancer CT scans happen inside a week. I know this from experience.

You might wait a year for a knee replacement.

> lung cancer CT scans happen inside a week. I know this from experience.

This is such a mischaracterization of the Swedish healthcare system, which is much more a lottery than your 'personal experience' suggests.

I have my own experience of a service that is plagued by delays, inefficiency and outright dystopian suffering alongside other people who have had fast and efficient help.

It's very much the luck of the draw - although sometimes I get the impression that social standing and even 'blondeness quotient' may help to get better care.

Noone is talking about Sweden, the thread is on the UK.

> Noone is talking about Sweden, the thread is on the UK

I was replying to a response that was specifically about Sweden.

> Erikun

> This was my thought exactly (I’m Swedish). It sounds so brutal, and it was not just her own but her entire family’s!

> adastra22

> Then she would have waited 10 months for a CT scan instead of 10 days.

I noticed that adastra22 was downvoted for this. I'm really not sure why, as it very closely mirrors a lot of people's experience with Swedish healthcare.

There have been a lot of stories in the news over the last couple of years, but here's just one at the top of a simple google-search, about a kid that died because their scans were postponed (in Swedish):

https://www.dagensmedicin.se/specialistomraden/cancer/barn-d...

> Due to a lack of capacity at Karolinska University Hospital, the examination of a previously cancerous child was postponed. The child subsequently died of metastatic cancer.

I'm afraid you hit the wrong ‶reply″ button.

I’m talking about the UK. No idea about Sweden.

Regarding long waits for care. You want to be the patient who has to wait for ages. It means you’re going to be fine. You don’t want to be the person who gets rushed past the queue.

I needed an abdominal CT in Australia. Got it the next day, and didn't cost me anything.

Just because the UK and Canadian systems are poorly resourced doesn't mean they can't work

Oh I know. Taiwans national insurance program is amazing. But this thread was about UK/Sweden.

In the last decade of his life (he passed away at 97), my grandfather has needed quite a fair bit of life-critical healthcare in BC, Canada.

At no point in his various medical emergencies did he need to wait 10 months for a CT scan... Or any other life-saving treatment.

The Canadian system is different and much better than the British one imo.

While both are single payer, the Canadian Medicare is federalized so Vancouver Island can target its members in a manner different than Fraser Valley.

The NHS is much more top down, and the facilities seem less updated than in Canada.

Salaries also largely kept up for medical professionals in Canada compared to the UK (and plenty of BMA members have begun moving to Canada for that reason).

When I was a kid on Vancouver Island, it wasn't uncommon to see Brits doing specialized work (eg. Doctors, Skilled labor, Civil Service) because they'd get paid way more and spend way less than in the UK.

She would have to do that due to the defunding of socialized healthcare in many countries to channel profits to private healthcare and make people like you say that 'Socialized healthcare doesnt work' so that they can come up later and say 'Lets privatize it'.

This is called 'strangle it then save it', and its the method that was used to privatize healthcare services in the West since the 80s. Starting with the US one...

You are free to believe whatever fits your narrative.

You are also free to make wild, entirely off-base assumptions about what I believe.

For non emergency care, slowly it is IMO. The private medical that comes with jobs is pretty reassuring for non emergency issues. It doesn’t cover an awful lot but I’ve found aspects of it very helpful over the years. (Referrals to specialists within a week or two, video/phone appointments with a GP same/next day) etc.

I wouldn’t take a job that didn’t offer it (it’s pretty standard in our industry)

It’s annoying that it’s taxed at your highest income tax band (20/40/45%) as if it were some kind of super luxury. Maybe 20 years ago, sure. I think the company has to pay insurance tax on the premium too!

But yes it’s reassuring to know an emergency won’t ever bankrupt me.

I really wish NHS was as good in practice as people praise it online. Even seeing a GP is now a fight with the system.

I think it's vastly different depending on where you live. I've not had much trouble tbh. Worse experience in Denmark where I love now, but still not that bad

It's still got to be better than dying in the streets because you couldn't find a job?

Most group health plans have COBRA continuation option, which means you can stay on the same plan for 18 to 36 months. If you haven't found work during that period, you'll likely qualify for one of the subsidized care packages. The catch of course is that COBRA premiums have to be paid out of pocket (or, given some foresight, HSA savings plan) and for a family plan they can be pretty costly (my last COBRA plan had $1600/month price tag). That said, if you had a well paid hi-tech job in a major company, you usually have some savings that can sustain this coverage for at least a several months until you find the next job. So the situation is not exactly like you lose access to care the moment you lose a job. There could be exceptional situation where you for some reason have no savings but your past income does not qualify you for subsidized plans, and in that case it can be tough, but it's not the usual case.