Nationwide Health Care Users

Inogenius

Help me out. I need answers on this stuff, because I think it's almost obvious that eventually the USA will move to some sort of system like it. I want to be the smart one, not the retarded one next door.

Who actually employs the health care staff? The government? The hospital? Does the hospital bill the government?

Is there ever a claim that is denied because of whatever reason? What about vision and dental? Are they both covered under the health care insurance?

Are the majority of the doctors foreign, or natural born?

Perhaps the Canadians and Australians can answer this one, since they're the latest developed countries to switch to universal health care (even if it was 20-30 years ago). What happens to all former health care insurance businesses, and the people employed by them?

The Phantom

I’m sure someone else can explain this far better than me.

The government runs the Health Service, they give individual health boards (regionalised bodies) x amount of money to use however they see fit. These health boards then distribute the money between all the healthcare services they have under their control. Both Dental and Vision are covered under this.

Individual hospitals/health boards decide on recruitment. The government doesn’t get involved, as far as I know. Maybe they set the criteria.

As for the Doctors, in my experience, there are a lot of foreign Doctors in Britain. I think it’s because in foreign countries, they see being a doctor as a very important role, and families encourage their children to become doctors more so than they do here. However there are a lot of nationals who take up medicine. I have quite a few friends who are in Med School now, training to become doctors.

Of course, you can choose to opt for private healthcare as well as using the National Health Service.

Here’s a little diagram I found, which sort of shows us what the national health service does…