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Originally Posted by Christian Benteke
Re: Hospital, what do Americans do if you need to go? If you need a serious operation and you have no money, then what do you do cos I'm assuming they don't just turn seriously ill people away? And what if it's minor, do you go in as normal then get billed for it at the end?
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I'm guessing if they've got a serious illness or need an operation right away and don't have insurance or the money, they'll have to sell anything they can to raise the money. Quite a scary prospect for us Brits that scenario. As for what the really poor do in such circumstances, it's a grey area for us here, perhaps an American on here will explain the procedure.
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Originally Posted by Burning Down
They can't turn you away. Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath upon getting licensed to practice medicine, and turning sick people away would be doing harm. Turning sick people back onto the streets could also become a public safety issue, especially if they have a dangerous communicable disease (what with all the misinformed non-vaccination going on now), and of course they wouldn't know that since they didn't examine the person. If you're in critical condition upon being admitted to the ER, they're not going to check for your insurance policy obviously. They treat you as promptly as possible, and bill you later. |
If they bill you later, it might be in the person's interest to have no money considering how expensive medical bills are there.
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The problem with going to the hospital in the US when you are uninsured, is that it affects the premiums of people who actually have insurance. I'm not sure if it's still like this under the Affordable Healthcare Act, though.
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That's insurance the world over though.
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In Canada, it's different. We have the single payer system here. The cost of healthcare is paid for by the government through income taxes, so not exactly "free", but you don't have to pay anything to the hospital or doctor, except for elective procedures. So like the UK, and most other Western countries, in that regard.
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The UK though is different from other European countries when it comes to healthcare as it's truly the only one that totally free on entry. Most other European countries I'm aware of have a similar healthcare situation while a person is paying into the system and that covers their dependent family as well, but if a person stops paying into the system because they lose their job for example, then they're only covered for a limited period until they find another. In some countries they're covered while claiming unemployment benefit but in others no. The UK on the other hand is free regardless whether a person works or not and for absolutely anybody that is a resident, as it's supported by the taxpayer.
Quite often immigrants can earn better wages in some other countries but when they learn the true meaning of free healthcare benefits it makes the UK a popular location.