A Privilege ?

[charliechaplinfan]

It wouldn't be easy to changing to a nationalised system, lots of doctors would have to switch to the public sector, which they probably wouldn't like, as the renumeration wouldn't be as great. I wasn't around when the health service started here in 1948 and my parents were small so I haven't heard first hand what life was like for ordinary people. I do know there wasn't a system like in America, it was simply that you paid for the treatment you needed or you went without or went to the oversubscribed charity wards.

I do know that the person who tackles bringing a national health system to America will have a tough job.

[markfp]

Alison:

No hospital can turn anyone away.... No one is denying anyone care....

I don't believe that's completely correct. It's my understanding that private hospitals that don't accept public money can and do refuse treatment to people all the time. There was a big story in the New York papers, a couple of years ago, about a private hospital that just threw a man in a car and "dumped" him outside of a public hospital. The man died and the hospital was sued by his family and lost, not because they refused care, but because by driving him to another hospital they were accepting responsibility for him. Basically, what the judge ruled was that had they just kept their doors locked and ignored the man, they would have been in the right...at least legally.

[ChiO]

As a general proposition, emergency care at a hospital cannot be denied.

But care is effectively denied all of the time. If one cannot afford basic primary preventative care, or has no access to it, and has no public or private payor, then care is for all practical purposes being denied...until the person has to go to the emergency room. Then we can complain about why emergency rooms are overutilized.