British Health Care: 4 Dentists per 10,000 Patients, Ten-Year Waiting List, but Hey -- It's Free!

[JDeuce]

Dude
7 out of 10 yanks dont even have a dental plan.


While about 99 out of 100 Brits don't even have healthy teeth. Dude. I liked hanging out in London, but those were some of the scariest smiles I'd seen in my life.

Oh, and show me a link to support your 7 out of 10 claim. That could mean that their health insurance plan doesn't cover cleanings, check ups, etc...but the vast majority of our health insurance plans will cover emergencies (like cracked teeth, oral surgeries, etc) as a regular medical expense.


A quick look on the net at US dental stuff exposes a minefield of plans with 20-80% off 'fees'....subject to blah de blah blah.


Can you be a wee bit more unambiguous than "US dental stuff" please? What exactly did you see that was so shocking? Our system needs massive overhaul, but is still better than any socialized system (despite most of our own feebile-minded American left insisting on trying to drag us down into the socialized health care gutter).

I'd like to have you find me a link showing where an American waited for 10 years before he was able to see a doctor on US soil, please.


Over here:
You go to the fúcking dentist.
Then you go home.

After having waited 10 years, by which time all your teeth have probably fallen out.

Grand...I get to go to the dentist so he can scratch my empty gums with cold metal instruments.


BTW. NHS dentists only have a contract with a quota of patients.
They can do as much private stuff as they want outside that contract.

Then how in the hell do you explain a patient having to wait 10 years to see a
dentist? And couldn't that practice be considered making money off of the "sick of injured"...a concept which horrifies most of the left? Why is that somehow okay, but a private health care system is not?


As far as "waste of resources" is concerned, learn some basic arithmetic.
We cover 100% of the population with 10% GDP.
You have your private pig-in-a-poke system and it costs you 15% of GDP.

So what? The Brits are an island that's about the size of Ohio. The USA has around 260 million residents. I think its somewhat of an apples and oranges comparison, but if you want to play, I can.

Screw GDP, and lets get down to brass tacks. Through work, my health insurance costs me about $30 a month. Out of pocket expenses have average maybe $500 a year (I don't get sick very often, and try to keep myself in good physical condition). 500+360=$860, but lets be nice and round that number up to me having to pay $1,000 per year to keep myself healthy. I'll guaran-damn-tee you that the amount you pay into your tax system which goes directly to funding health care is a hell of a lot more than $1,000 per person, per year.

 

[eek.]

a couple of links for you...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%227+out+of+10%22dental&hl=en&lr=&start=0&sa=N

You cant compare 'just you', you have to look at the average cost in your society.
Heck, if I was unemployed over here I could say:
"ooh look, it costs $0 dollars a year"
yeah right, a fat lot of good a sample of one person is :>Grin>

I agree with the crap teeth bit in the UK.
A crap diet and a LOT of people who cant be bothered with six monthlies who only go once a peg is ruined etc.
That's their choice.

I'd like to have you find me a link showing where an American waited for 10 years before he was able to see a doctor (should read dentist) on US soil, please.

Why do I bother, you guys just live in doofusville with this stuff.
Its a totally different mindset

The question should read.
I'd like to have you find me a link showing where an American waited for 10 years before he was able to see a FREE dentist on US soil, please.

As far as I am aware, the max waiting time for a free dentist is 10 years in the UK and 1 million years in the USA.
(using a statistically usless sample of one person

)

For a private dentist, you never have any waiting time in the US or UK.

The GDP thing is the bottom line, which I believe is quite important in most circles, (apparently not yours tho...)
Each year, you guys blow 50% more GDP on health stuff than we do, and you are no better off healthwise than we are.

Each year, every year, year after year after year, 5% of USA inc. gets flushed down the toilet because of your dumb healthcare system.

The USA has about 10 trillion p.a. so that works out about $500 billion.

Heck, you could invade another country with that, every year :>Grin>

Syria in 2004
Iran in 2005
N Korea in 2006

And still come out ahead. :toast:

 

[Phaedrus]

posted by eek:

The question should read.
I'd like to have you find me a link showing where an American waited for 10 years before he was able to see a FREE dentist on US soil, please.

As far as I am aware, the max waiting time for a free dentist is 10 years in the UK and 1 million years in the USA.

There are free health clinics in virtually every city in the US. In the ******* of America where I grew up, miles from anything else of interest, there was a health clinic. Many health clinics have dental facilities -- not all by any means, but many do.
Next question?

Also, any thoughts on the above-copied article about how well the state handles the "too important for greedy capitalists" railways? Can you Google "Amtrak" sometime when you get a chance?



Phaedrus

 

[eek.]

So if you have free healthcare like us P. whats the worry?
Ours is free too. Party on dudes.
Its great isn't it.

Amtrak. The statewide system?
It makes a loss.
If it was subsidised to the extent of the US road network you would have one peachy rail system.
Discussion on Amtrak:
http://www2.gardenrailways.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5876

 

[Phaedrus]

eek

You've got to be kidding. Some railway enthusiasts don't think that Amtrak gets enough largesse, and so the solution is to throw away as much money on it as we do on the EIS and other federal transportation subsidies? I'm telling you, sometimes the socialist mindset simply baffles me. ("Here we have two immensely wasteful goverment programs. Program A receives significantly more funding than Program B. The answer is clearly to spend as much on Program B as we do on Program A." WTF?)

Amtrak is without a doubt the poster child for government waste. Here you have a state monopoly on high-speed passenger rail service, yet it has consistently drained funds from the fedgov since it was created in the early 70's.

But enough rhetoric, let's get to the numbers:

-->Since its inception, Amtrak has cost nearly a billion a year in subsidies. It is currently costing more than a billion per year, so this average is on the way up.

-->In 1997 Congress laid out requirements for Amtrak to get off of the federal dole by 2002. It never even came close, because special interests in the Senate blocked them from even doing a feasibility study.

-->In 2002 Amtrak was brought to the brink of closure when it was discovered that it had been indulging in Enron-esque creative accounting. It required a $ 200 million bailout just to keep the trains running. Unlike the scandals which attend any whiff of malfeasance in the real world, no one had anything at all to say about the accounting fraud perpetrated by Amtrak.

--> Amtrak loses $ 87.20 per passenger per trip. This, despite the fact that it is by no stretch of the imagination the cheapest way to travel -- in almost any given route it is cheaper to go by Greyhound, and actually tends to take less time than by "high speed passenger rail."

That old government adage: "It takes money to waste money."

Why is this so? It's incredibly simple: Amtrak, being run by the government, has no interest in providing efficient and reliable passenger rail service. Like most other transportation projects, pure pork used to curry favour with local constituents by bureacrats in DC. It won't shut down lines until they are positively hemmoraging money, something that no private service could consider in any normal circumstances. The failing lines are hemmoraging money because no one uses them: they service markets that already have local mass transit trains and/or buses, and inter-city markets that are better served by airlines and long-distance bus lines, offering more comfort and choice at an often lower price.

How is this an "essential service" that must be run by the government? If it is so essential, why do comparitively few people use it in so many markets, which causes the demand markets -- primarily in the Atlantic Corridor -- to siphon off profits which could be used to improve and maintain the lines and trains to prop up routes that nobody uses.

Finally, it is crucial to bear in mind that from its inception Amtrak was allegedly going to be a for-profit venture that would require no federal subsidies. (Also, the absolute maximum income tax was going to be 10%, Social Security cards used to say "Not to be used for identification" on them, etc. There's a bit of a pattern here, but that's a thread for another time.) So, what you have here is not just some money hoover "for the common good" garbage but more than thirty years' worth of the federal government attempting and failing miserably to turn an honest dollar's profit.

Proponents of the omnipotent state often have some semi-valid points regarding general welfare and such. But it is inconceivable to me how generally difficult it is for statists to acknowledge and let go of an idea that is a demonstrable, obvious failure, as if it is just magically going to get better one day after decades of getting worse.


Phaedrus

 

[eek.]

So why don't you just shítcan your rail network?

Heck.
Why hasn't any industrialised country in the world done that yet?
After all, most (if not all), run at a loss.

 

[xpanda]

These Brit dentists are probably on salary and have no incentive to handle volume. Why bother staying late and treating extra patients if you'll make the same amount of money either way?

Fwiw, in Canada, doctors are paid on a per patient, per item basis. A neurosurgeon would charge the state more than a general practitioner, as well. So, yes, there is all kinds of incentive to work extra hours and such. My grandmother's doctor has a 'mobile lab' and his nurse travels around to his patients for routine bloodwork and the like. He bills the gov't each time.

And dental is not included in our health care programme. Dental is usually provided by employee's insurance coverage.

 

[Phaedrus]

posted by eek:

So why don't you just shítcan your rail network?

Heck.
Why hasn't any industrialised country in the world done that yet?
After all, most (if not all), run at a loss.

Net Income Applicable to Shares

BNI
2001 $ 731 million
2002 $ 760 million
2003 $ 816 million

CSX
2001 $ 293 million
2002 $ 424 million
2003 $ 246 million

NSC
2001 $ 375 million
2002 $ 460 million
2003 $ 535 million

UNP
2001 $ 966 million
2002 $ 1,341 million
2003 $ 1,585 million

Seriously, none of these guys could run a break-even rail service if they tried. They're too stuck in that greedy corporate mentality.

Bear in mind that railways have some of the highest costs of any industry on employees and benefits due to the filthy, disgusting labour unions that strangle them -- and these guys still pull it off.

Next question?

Phaedrus

 

[eek.]

Thx P.
How many of these companies are making their money out of passengers?

X
I didn't kno that.
Socialised dental has struggled to survive over here, but part of that was the Govs own fault.

 

[xpanda]

X
I didn't kno that.
Socialised dental has struggled to survive over here, but part of that was the Govs own fault.

Dental can hardly be considered an essential service, so I'm not sure why it would be socialised in the first place. That said, we also have many health care services that aren't socialised, like chiropractic care, psycho-therapy (though psychiatrists are covered, since they dispense drugs), plastic surgery, etc. It does vary by province, so I'm only speaking for Ontario.

My extended health benefits package at work covers 80% dental, 100% pharmaceuticals, $300 bi-annually for glasses, $500 per annum for massage (the most popular item, btw), private hospital room coverage, and $2000 per annum for dental surgery. It also provides life insurance and long-term disability coverage, as well. Do your employers offer extended benefits, then, or no?

 

[eek.]

Hardly anyone uses private plans over here.

My last company had a private health plan (cant remember what for) but a lot of people didn't bother taking it up, including me, because you don't NEED it.

They also carry a tax charge (an employers taxable benefit) which might put some people off but it was like £50 a year- which is buttons for something if it is important.

However, the private 'health club' plan at the local Sheraton with sauna, restaurant, bar etc had a very high demand rate and there was some stiff competition for it.

 

[Phaedrus]

posted by eek:

Thx P.
How many of these companies are making their money out of passengers?

AFAIK, an infinitesmal amount of private rail business is passenger carrying. Why bother trying to compete with subsidised government business?

Interestingly, when Amtrak was created there was a bit of a stink going on about rail companies dropping passenger business, and it was the old "essential service" chestnut that was used as a bromide to justify this abortion. Yet what rail companies knew then - -that passenger bus lines were expanding to the extent that they would pose a serious threat to the relevancy of passenger rail -- came true. And even the railway executives could not have forseen the advent of airfare cheaper than gas and lodging for long-distance trips, which renders long-distance pasenger transit by rail an absurdity -- in fact, the above $ 87.20 figure for Amtrak's losses is only an average: it's $ 374.00 per passenger on the New Orlenas-Los Angeles line, and $ 295.00 per passenger on the Chicago-Philadelphia line. A coach class plane ticket from Chicago to Philly costs <$100.00 ... it would in other words be cheaper for American taxpayers to just provide free airfare to anyone who wanted to fly to Philly from Chicago, or vice versa, than to keep that line open, even if the sudden advent of free airfare caused demand to nearly triple.
[EDIT: Also essential to bear in mind, passengers do not receive free Amtrak fares from Chicago to Philly ... they have to pay for it, and so do the taxpayers!]

Therein lies the real flaw in state-controlled enterprise: even if you somehow bang your head on the steps and become convinced that it is absolutely essential to get people from Chicago to Philadelphia, it would still be vastly cheaper and more efficient to do so in a way other than that which has been decided by the state to be the best way to do so.

[EDIT2: Naturally private enterprises also make judgment errors, sometimes catastrophic ones. But they generally don't take three decades to address a given error, since they don't have unlimited stolen funds to deal with.]

So again, is Amtrak an "essential service" or is it a useless, wasteful political pork project designed to curry favour for politicians among the remarkably stupid and gullible populace?


Phaedrus