"Ed Pawlowski" > wrote in message
...
> On 4/13/2016 4:21 AM, Ophelia wrote:
>>
>>
>
>>>
>>> There are situations in Australia where those with private health
>>> cover can actually be worse off than those relying solely on the
>>> public system. A few cracks in the system there...
>>
>> In which case I would expect the private health system to go out of
>> business. Why pay for worse treatment?
>>
> We have that too. May poor people are eligible for full coverage. I
> wrote about someone I know that has had some serious operations, needs
> insulin, etc and has 100% coverage for everything.

I am very pleased to read that, because there are so many horror stories
about your health service and the insurance costs. Poor people here
(those on low wages or those not in work at all) are covered exactly the
same as the workers who are paying into the NI.

Of course the gov gets money from other places too because I doubt the
workers could cover it all, but without the workers paying NI there would be
a huge hole in the budget.

I was very lucky in that my company paid for private insurance for me. I
still had to pay the National Insurance from my salary though even though I
wasn't using it. During that time I had a lot of surgery etc so as I say, I
was very lucky. Of course that payment for private health was part of my
salary. Companies don't give free gifts)


> Then you have the low to mid income people that have insurance that
> qualified under present rules but you can have thousands of dollars in
> copays and deductibles if you need medical care. That is where we need to
> make changes.


Yes, it sounds very frightening. What happens if someone is seriously ill,
has no insurance and no money? Surely they are not just left to die???


> If you work for most any government agency, a position in the healthcare
> industry, an upper middle class job, chances are you have good coverage at
> little or no cost.
>
> People working in food service, hotels, retail, have some of the worst
> situations. They are making low wages and are offered little from the
> employers.

How do they get health cover when they are paid so poorly?



--
http://www.helpforheroes.org.uk/shop/