I’m from the US so am very familiar with insurance. We have genuine problems here, too, though and I think many of us, regardless of where we are struggle with the grass is greener on the other side. But I want to mention the main problem here and that is expense and headache. We are full of citizens who have had standard treatment for diseases denied due to the expense. After all, insurance companies like most every other large company here is run by shareholders and profits matter the most. So what kind of healthcare you get and the ease that you get it is very much dependent on what kind of insurance your company has bought into. Plus we have co-pays and at the very best you pay thousands of dollars a year with a serious illness. At the very worst, you go bankrupt. That sucks. However, the media does like to portray that everyone in the US has these kind of problems and that’s not accurate. My healthcare was fantastic and my insurance covered what they needed to without co-pays killing us as a family. The vast majority of people are like me. So there is that. We also have fantastic treatment that is patient centered if you can get to a NCI center. We are told what the doctor’s recommend as far as surgery but the ultimate decision is our’s. So if they want to do a lumpectomy and we want a double mastectomy we get that double mastectomy. It’s why our mastectomy rates are so much higher than your’s but I wouldn’t change that personally. Our culture as far as general healthcare goes is to value bodily autonomy (except for abortion but don’t get me started on that). And our time frame for treatment is generally excellent and our waiting times for biopsy or scan results is in days instead of weeks. All that does bode better for mental health. But when there are problems, they’re big ones. So anyway there’s some differences.
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Thank you for making all that clearer @Kay0987 . I don’t like it when people from overseas criticize the NHS so to be fair to make a bald statement like I did about healthcare in the US I did expect some come back. I know your post was not directed to me but thank you for your gracious and balanced reply. X
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