Originally Posted By fkurucz According to this article its in crisis: <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a1Kn6xGSdDWE&refer=home" target="_blank">http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ news?pid=20601109&sid=a1Kn6xGSdDWE&refer=home</a> UK LP'ers, is there any truth to this article, or is it an alarmist piece that is using corner cases as examples? Are Brits really going out of the country for dental care?
Originally Posted By fkurucz davewasbaloo commented recently that they received orthodontic care no too long ago.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Dental care is a little bit of a lottery. Private is available easily. NHS delivered care (free for kids, pregos, disabled, old, unemployed - subsidised for the rest of us e.g. Check up $30, Root Canal $100 for full treatment) can be challenging. If you are already registered with a dentist and go for a check once a year, it is not a problem. In some areas however, there is some difficulty recruiting dentists and getting people on lists. Private care is cheaper abroad than in the UK. The key here is get on a dentist's roll, and keep going. Then there is no problem. Or be prepared to travel to get to one. But yep - my braces were free. A crown cost me $60 5 years ago, and my dentist sorts it out for free if there are any probs. And Brits used to have poor teeth during the war (rationing diets and bad personal hygene), but now I would wager that Brits have healther mouths than in the US. And if you want teeth whitening laser treatment etc., it is private and runs about $200.
Originally Posted By DAR Apparently the little after my post was a little lost. You're all familiar with the British people having bad teeth stereotype?
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<subsidised for the rest of us e.g. Check up $30, Root Canal $100 for full treatment) can be challenging.>> Interesting. Dental plans in the US often cover check ups and cleanings 100% (no deductible), but woe is you if you need anything more than a mere filling. Typically the pay only 50% for a crown or root canal, which mean that you would have to cough up $200-300 (or more) plus deductibles. According to our benfeits plan breakdown at work, the total cost for the family dental plan is about $150 per month, of which my share is about $50.
Originally Posted By JeffG >> "Typically the pay only 50% for a crown or root canal, which mean that you would have to cough up $200-300 (or more) plus deductibles." << I can attest to this. We have dental insurance through my employer, which is a major corporation generally known for having a pretty good benefits package. My wife recently had two crowns put on and the out-of-pocket cost to us came to around $750. -Jeff
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo That said, NHS Contributions are about 10% of gross monthly salary.
Originally Posted By SuperDry ^^^ I'd rather have the UK system for 10% of my salary instead of the current system in the US: I pay "only" 2.9% of my salary for Meidcare, and get no coverage!
Originally Posted By SuperDry ^^^ That's a long way off. You've heard about how bad a shape the Social Security system is in as far as the projections 2 or 3 decades out. Well, Medicare is 4x worse off. What are they going to do? I don't think the economy can handle raising the Medicare tax to 12%, on top of Social Security and income tax. I think the only realistic thing that's going to happen is a combination of benefits reduction and removal of the "universal" nature of coverage through means testing.
Originally Posted By fkurucz <<That said, NHS Contributions are about 10% of gross monthly salary.>> Full coverage (medical + dental) where at work has a total cost of $1000 per month, of which I current pay $300, and my employer picks up the rest. Plus we have "out of pocket costs": -$20 to see the family doctor -$200 for both in and out patient care -copays for prescriptions. $5 for generics (if they cost less than $5 then we just pay the whole thing), and up to $50 for non-generics.
Originally Posted By fkurucz << I'd rather have the UK system for 10% of my salary instead of the current system in the US>> <<Full coverage (medical + dental) where at work has a total cost of $1000 per month>> Which is why there are so many uninsured people in the US. Few employers are as generous as mine. There are a lot of people who are offered health benefits where they work, but they cannot afford their share of the premium, so they do not sign up. 20% of people in my state (Colorado) are uninsured, and the number keeps rising. I had an interesting series of events happen to me that made me realize how lucky I am to have insurance: I am now old enough to need an annual checkup. If I was uninsured I wouldn't be getting annual checkups. As a result of my annual checkup my doctor decided that I should get a colonoscopy. Were I uninsured I wouldn't have had the procedure, as they cost about $5000. The colonoscopy found a naughty (as in pre-cancerous) polyp in my colon, which was removed. So, had I been uninsured that polyp would still be festering in my colon, with a high probability of becoming cancerous within the next few years. And if that cancer was not detected early then I would be a dead man.
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo Nope, I have very few complaints about the NHS. I think it is a bargain. Several ops in my family, babies delivered including hospital stays, and braces, all for a monthly contribution pretax. My Blood Pressure pills are $14 every 2 months. Free weight checks, BP and blood work. Birth control - check.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 fkurucz's post is a perfect example, IMO, of why single-payer health insurance makes sense, morally AND financially. It encourages regular checkups and preventative care. If you wait too long (which uninsured people here normally do), you either have a HUGE bill (often paid for by taxpayers anyway - at a far higher rate than they would have "paid" via taxes for the preventative checkups), or the disease has actually progressed so far that the patient dies. Note that the US has a life expectancy below most other western countries. As davewasbaloo says, single-payer (in Britain known as NHS) is a bargain.
Originally Posted By DVC_dad I think there is far more to consider than price when talking dental care. I also think to be fair, each method of dental coverage has it's own pros and cons. I believe that no one strict way of doing it (private vs. single payer) is right or wrong for every single individual. I was under the impression that you couldn't priactice privately in the UK. That shows how little I really know about your dental and health care system Dave. Can both dentists, and physicians practice privately in the UK? Also, were your costs in US Dollars or pounds?
Originally Posted By davewasbaloo >>>I was under the impression that you couldn't priactice privately in the UK. That shows how little I really know about your dental and health care system Dave. Can both dentists, and physicians practice privately in the UK?<<< Indeed they can and do. >>>Also, were your costs in US Dollars or pounds?<<< I converted to dollars to make it easier for the vast majority of LP readers.
