Health Care

I’ve always lived with National Health Services (NHS) in the UK & the Isle of Man and in my opinion, although the NHS has many faults (easily found via Google), the benefit of the NHS to its citizens vastly outweigh its faults (I should also state that for most of my working life I have also had the benefit of company provided private health insurance).

My parents experienced both the private health system in the UK and the NHS, it was something that we discussed on a number of occasions and it is an area where both admitted to completely changing their opinion - before the NHS was introduced (and for quite some time after) they were vehemently opposed to it, as they grew older they acknowledged that it was probably one of the best, if not the best, measure that any UK government ever introduced for its citizens.

It’s extremely difficult trying to measure and compare health services in different countries, the only reasonably comparable numbers that I have been able to find are life expectancy and health expenditure.

Although there are many factors that can be considered in terms of health service they tend to be of a qualitative nature – for instance luxury hospitals complete with all the bells, whistles and toys may look good on paper, however if they don’t produce longer life expectancy for the citizens what use are they (other than for making health industry owners wealthier)?

Looking at the efficiency of the UK health service purely in terms of its financial cost against its result of life expectancy in 2006 the UK was ranked 15th highest in terms of Government health expenditure (or 20th based on the total of Government plus Private health expenditure) however the result of this expenditure only left the UK ranked 26th in terms of life expectancy (with life expectancy of 77 for males and 81 for females).

Probably the biggest benefit as one gets older is that compared to some other countries no one worries that the increasing level of ill health that tends to come with age will not result in the increasing danger of withdrawal of coverage for spurious reasons (to ensure the bottom line of an insurance company) with the attendant possibility of bankruptcy if one becomes ill. For context, please note that I have a particular beef in this regard as some wealthy retired friends of mine in New York ended up bankrupt when their insurance company withdrew their cover following illnesses and no other company would take them on.

Some time ago I did some research on health expenditure and life expectancy, part of it can be found on this thread:

life-expectancy-and-health-expenditure-t14395.html

In conclusion:

• Could the NHS be better? - Definitely

• Would I want to swap the NHS for a Private Health Service? - Absolutely not