Question on English healthcare

[JoDog]

I'm having a debate with a conservative family member over the proposed health care plan.

He claims that the Canadian and English government systems pay/reimburse full costs of any medical care there citizens get while abroad.

I have found information on a Canadian gov't website refuting that point. Does any one know what is true of the English system? Or any ideas on where I can find the info? How about Germany?

Thanks.

[enlightenment]

1. It's British, not English - to start. But no, it doesn't always cover

In Europe, you need a European Insurance Card (which you can apply for with your NHS card, for free) https://www.ehic.org.uk/Internet/home.do

It has limits, but it does work in Germany.

If a UK citizen travels outside the EU - say to the US - they need travel insurance.

[YewNork]

8. Not necessarily

NHS England, NHS Scotland, NHS Wales, and Health and Social care (in Northern Ireland) are separately operated organizations serving their respective residents.

[enlightenment]

9. But from the perspective of the OP, seeking general information,

it's British.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Ask in the UK Forum

I got some answers about NHS versus private medicine recently.

I do know that the European Union members have reciprocal arrangements for one another's citizens and that the NHS will provide emergency care (not routine or preventive or rehabilitative) for anyone who has a medical emergency in the UK. (I checked on this before I went there.)

For example, one of my former teaching colleagues took a student group to London for a January term course. While they were there, one of the students fell and broke her arm. She was treated in a nearby emergency room at no cost.

My mother had a medical emergency while traveling in Germany a few years ago when she broke her ankle walking on rough cobblestones. She went to a kind of urgent care clinic, and there was no charge at the point of service, but her insurance company here received a bill from the German clinic.

The one time I went to the doctor in Japan (a cut became infected), I was there on a tourist visa (I didn't get sick during the time I was there as a student and enrolled in their national health plan, which at the time had no deductible and 3% copay for students), and I had to pay full costs.

You can't generalize about other countries' health care systems except to say that they all

1) Cover every legal resident of the country

2) Have no deductibles

3) Have no fees or modest fees at the point of service

But the actual mechanics of the system differ tremendously from country to country. That's why it's so ridiculous that the greedy insurance companies and their bought-and-paid-for members of Congress are trying to reinvent the wheel. There are literally dozens of working models out there.

[PassingTimeHere]

3. I lived with NHS and it sucks. I want something more like France's system

The Republicans are right that we don't want the government in the heathcare business. What I want from the government is administration of a single payer health insurance system (no private insurance corporations skimming off profits).

The NHS has a horrible record in curing cancer compared to the U.S. and France, and that's even after you account for the fact that many of our citizens here in the U.S. are uninsured. Think carefully about that.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. I view the French system as a better approach as well

[busymom]

5. You are exactly right...

One of the problems in the UK is access to care. It sucks to not have insurance in the USA and I'm not justifying it for a second, but even someone without insurance here can get treatment in a relatively quick time-frame at a major teaching hospital. One of the problems that we dealt with in the UK was access to MRI/PET/CT scanners as well as referral time to specialists.

Even the uninsured in America will see an oncologist in a timely fashion. At the catholic hospital here, you get the same access and treatment regardless of your insurance status and most doctors write off large portions (if not all) of the bills. This includes expensive chemo drugs. In the UK that is very different. My husband (a physician) used to call it govt. sponsored population control.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. How much of that is due to Thatcher's cuts

that weren't made up later? As opposed to the inherent design of the system, I mean.

[iverglas]

11. that all sounds lovely,

all that free health care in the US.

It leaves one wondering about all those bankruptcies though, doesn't it?


In the UK that is very different. My husband (a physician) used to call it govt. sponsored population control.

What, exactly, is very different?

And what was your husband's relationship with the NHS?

[iverglas]

10. I'm always curious

The NHS has a horrible record in curing cancer compared to the U.S. and France

I'd be happy to think carefully about it, if you could direct me to something to think about. I mean, other than your assertion.

Something else to think about, of course: 2007 GDP per capita, UK, about US$35000; US, about US$45,000. (Canada, about US$39,000.)

Granted, it's somewhat more equitably distributed in the UK, and more so in Canada.

Nonetheless, it is really rather important to consider the economic constraints under which a society operates in assessing the benefits it provides to its members.


If you lived with the NHS, then you know full well that the reason why it sucked (badly at one time, less so now) is that it was intentionally underfunded, starting with Thatcher.

The Canadian system is universal single public payer for insurance, private delivery for services (para-public for hospital services). We very much do not want the French system, in which the thin edge of the private insurance wedge is present.

[YewNork]

7. In general, health insurance outside of Canada would not be covered 100%

It's impossible to make any claim about the "Canadian system" because there is no one system in Canada. Each province and territory runs its own insurance plan for its residents.

And, for coverage outside of Canada you have differentiate between people who are sent from Canada to another country for treatment, and those who become sick while outside
Canada and need medical care while they are abroad.

The Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) has a website where they indicate the following about coverage outside of Canada:

OHIP will pay only for insured, emergency out-of-country health services that are rendered to an insured person.
To qualify as an ‘emergency’ there are a number of criteria that must be satisfied. These criteria are set by regulation and all conditions listed below must be met:

the treatment must be medically necessary, and
the treatment must be performed at a licensed hospital or licensed health facility, and
the treatment must be rendered in relation to an illness, disease, condition or injury that :
is acute and unexpected, and
arose outside of Canada, and
requires immediate treatment.
These conditions are intended and designed to provide a very limited amount of funding for the medical treatment of insured residents of Ontario if they incur an
injury or develop a disease while they are outside of Canada. If the illness, disease, condition or injury arises before you leave Canada, or if it is not acute or unexpected,
no payment can be made.
********* end of website ****************

Additionally, OHIP will only pay the same rate that they would have paid if the treatment had been performed in Ontario. If the actual cost is higher than what would
be reimbursed in Ontario, the patient is responsible for the difference.

For this reason, Canadians are encouraged to purchase "out of country" health insurance when traveling abroad.

When a Canadian is sent outside of Canada for immediately necessary treatment because there is no treatment available in Canada, then
arrangements with OHIP are normally made to cover it 100%. But, when Canadians are traveling outside of Canada and they suddenly need
medical care, then it is not normally covered 100%, hence the need for out of country insurance.