Re:Your heart attack bill: $3,300 in Arkansas, $92,000 in Ca...
by mseebach on Wednesday May 08, 2013 @08:13PM
(#5677996)
The fact that the £5k is charged to your employer, not you, doesn't mean you didn't "pay" it (you never "paid" taxes anyway, they were deducted before the money was ever in your hands), it just makes the system more opaque (and makes people believe they pay less in taxes than they actually do).
I agree that it's a fundamental property of modern societies to ensure universal health care, one way or the other. What angers me about the UK model is how the system handles a scandals like Stafford Hospital: with anything less than total fury. At Stafford Hospital (est. 400-1200 patients died as a result of poor care 2005-2009). One manager resigned, one was suspended on full pay. Years later, some meagre compensations has been paid out, some apologies and an inquiry which one party will now use to push the same reforms (maybe they're sensible, maybe they're not) they always wanted to push, and the other party will try to block them for the same reasons they will always try to block them.
Yadda yadda yadda, in the meantime, people died, no-one felt any consequences. The same people in the same organisation that let this happen are still here. And no, I'm not vengeful-blood-in-the-street-type person, but I'm not seeing the whole "Shit, this is a systemic failure, we're all part of the system, thus we're all responsible. How do we fix this?"
I agree that it's a fundamental property of modern societies to ensure universal health care, one way or the other. What angers me about the UK model is how the system handles a scandals like Stafford Hospital: with anything less than total fury. At Stafford Hospital (est. 400-1200 patients died as a result of poor care 2005-2009). One manager resigned, one was suspended on full pay. Years later, some meagre compensations has been paid out, some apologies and an inquiry which one party will now use to push the same reforms (maybe they're sensible, maybe they're not) they always wanted to push, and the other party will try to block them for the same reasons they will always try to block them.
Yadda yadda yadda, in the meantime, people died, no-one felt any consequences. The same people in the same organisation that let this happen are still here. And no, I'm not vengeful-blood-in-the-street-type person, but I'm not seeing the whole "Shit, this is a systemic failure, we're all part of the system, thus we're all responsible. How do we fix this?"