Britain's Worst Teeth

[smeddley]

I kept meaning to make a note of this show that was on BBC America - if you are all all squeamish about teeth, do not, under any circumstances, watch this show. If the teeth aren't bad enough (and they are, honestly, the chick whose teeth were worn down to stubs because of her anorexia wasn't bad, but the broken, blackened teeth of the other people just looked painful - and evidently were) they show a wee bit of dental work that made even me (a hardened Discovery Health Channel viewer) cover my eyes. Serious - the Saw movies have nothing on this. Probably because it was real life.

The saddest part was that one girl was so afraid of the dentist that she needed to be sedated to have the work done. Her mouth was already so far gone she couldn't really eat and was in constant pain. The waiting list? 2 years. 2 freakin' years. I whined when I had to wait a week to go in about a missing filling that really didn't hurt. And again when, in order to have my extraction done under mild sedation (not fully asleep, but not just Novocaine), I'd have had to wait 3 weeks. But seriously - 2 years! At that point for her it wasn't even a dental problem any more, it was a health problem.

I'm sorry, but that's just awful. And I know you can buy extra private insurance and have things done faster, but man, if part (and a fair part) of my salary is already going to a tax for health care, it seems like crap to have to pay even more.

And I know I'll get crap about this, but I really, really, really, REALLY hope we don't get socialized medicine in this country. Based on Britain's scale, if I made there what I make here, my health insurance payment (which would then be a tax and not a premium, but what's the difference?) would DOUBLE. No, really, I worked out the math. DOUBLE. Oh, and something I almost forgot about - they'd also take the equivalent of a month's worth of premiums out of my husband's checks every month, where as of now he's covered under mine. So really, my payments would go from $X to $3X. And, yes, I suppose I wouldn't have copays, but I visit the doctor once a year and take no prescription medications, so that really wouldn't factor in to my case. And yes, it's all about me. :p But really - take a look at your check and your health insurance premiums. How would you feel if they suddenly tripled? Ours went up $6 every two weeks last year and I thought people would have a conniption.

Do I think our health care system is perfect? No. Do I think socialized medicine is the answer? No.

Next time I get sick, I'm going to the vet. It only costs $100 for a full checkup and medication for my dog... But then again, a vet only pays a couple grand a month for malpractice insurance, some doctors have premiums as high as $40,000-$50,000 a month. Somehow, I think there just has to be a correlation.

Comments

[rinalia.livejournal.com]

I have known people in Europe who have had to wait months-over a year to be seen....one was suicidal . "Suicidal? Yeah, mighty sorry about that. We can see you in, oh say six months? You'll be dead by then? Well, carry on."

Private health care has serious problems. Public health care has serious problems.

My vet charges way more than my doctor so I don't think I'll be heading over for a personal checkup. :)

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Well, I guess from their perspective it's a problem that would take care of itself... O.o

Yeah, neither system is perfect. No system will be. And I don't claim to have any answers, I just don't want a huge push to move from one crappy system to another...

Really? My vet is cheap! In terms of what he actually gets paid, that is. I pay my doctor less out of my pocket, but that's because the insurance is picking up the res. I think an office visit for the vet is something like $25 and for my doctor it's closer to $80.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

If you had your job in the UK, you'd almost certainly get free health insurance, which gets you into a private hospital with a far, far reduced waiting list. I have free health insurance in my job. These days it's a pretty standard full-time benefit. (Dental care is, sadly, not included in this. I go private for dental care and fortunately haven't needed any expensive work yet, just one filling.)

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Okay, so I'd still get my same private insurance, but I'd still be shelling out more in NHI - so it's not a crappier proposition, just a more expensive one. And I don't know if people in the US are pushing for the same fees and systems, it was just an example. BBC America is also showing the special about how awful health care is in China and Germany, I don't know if I want to watch that, either.

I'm just not used to the idea of waiting lists at all. When I went in to the neurologist about my back, he looked at my MRI and said 'yup, you need surgery to fix that disk. How about Tuesday?' This was on a Thursday.

I do pay extra for dental insurance, and I don't mind that since I do use it a lot. It has limits on it as far as what they'll pay, but for most people that's not an issue. I've capped out a few times. :O I think my health insurance covers a few dental issues, when they become medical problems, but I've never used it for that.

There are up sides and down sides to both systems, unfortunately, for someone like me (middle-class, childless, two-income family) there's no real up side in changing. I'm not going to say 'I've never had a problem so it's a perfect system' but... I've never had a problem, why do people want to change to a system that makes things worse for me? It seems like the middle class always gets the shaft. We don't make enough money to not really be effected by higher taxes, and get none of the help of the poor. We're self sufficient and happy, dammit, and people need to leave us alone! </rant>

Sorry, didn't mean to drag your country into it, I just hear so much 'health care is FREE is England' that it makes me want to tear my hair out. Nothing is free. :(

Though I suppose if you worked where I do, the company would pick up the tab for your health insurance (they pay 100% for a single person). So you'd get it for 'free'...

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Health care is free in England for Australians!

(Dentist being a friend of the family FTW...)

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

Or maybe just Australians with British passports; I can't remember.

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

I think anyone who is in England can walk into a health-care facility and get medical care - I seem to recal my friends visited there awhile back, and she had to go to the doctor for a strep infection, and I think they said it was free. I think. Or course, with the currency rate exchange it more than makes up for it... o.O

[smeddley.livejournal.com]

Also: sorry, didn't mean to be so crabby at you. I came across crankier than I intended, and you were in the line of fire. I'm not impuning England, I'm complaining about people in my own country who spend all their time saying how *wonderful* it is there...

And it starts to feel a bit like your family telling you how wonderful a guy is that you like but don't love, and you want to scream, "FINE! YOU MARRY HIM, THEN!" You know? So sorry, again, if I came across as bitchy. :/

[alankria.livejournal.com]

Oh, no worries about crabbiness. I certainly don't think our system is perfect. (I hear US people occasionally going on about how GLORIOUS the NHS is and I just laugh.) But I do stand by the idea of free healthcare -- of course it's not actually free, as we pay NI, but it's free when you walk in the door. I hear too many stories of people in the US, particularly the self-employed (I have full-time writers on my flist), who don't have health insurance and wind up paying out the arse for an emergency op. Whereas when I went in to get my appendix out, I didn't have to stress over a bill at the end. (And I only had to wait a day for my op, in which time nothing ill occurred except more pain; the appendix didn't burst in that time. Waiting lists don't happen for emergency ops, but, of course, you can have a very necessary op that isn't a right-now-emergency op and you wind up waiting too long if you can't go private.)

We have waiting lists because we don't have enough beds or staff. The latter is, well, in part because not enough people want to become doctors/nurses. (And some morons want to cut immigration. Hi, a lot of immigrants? Want to do useful stuff like save lives. Let. them. in.)

Oh, and the part where my nearest A&E is a 45 minute drive away? FUCK YOU, ASSHOLES, DID YOU MISS OUT ON A BRAIN CELL OR SEVERAL WHEN YOU DECIDED TO SHUT CRAWLEY'S A&E? /rant

So, yeah, our system is far from perfect. But I stand behind free-at-the-door healthcare nonetheless. It just needs work. Like, a lot.

[revoked-soul.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm glad to have public health care here! If I lived in the US I'd be broke broke broke. Well...more broke. ;)

[cazrolime.livejournal.com]

To be fair, everything over here costs an arm and a leg and several other essential body-parts. I feel for postwar Germany. :P