i see deaf people.

This just proves that it's wrong for a modern society to provide medical care to those who cannot otherwise provide it.

You're a wonderful human being, submitter, and you should be proud of yourself because you stand firm against the horrors of socialism for others besides major corporations.

Wheres your socialist god now, Mr. Moore?

Note it is called the "Health Service" and not the "Health Care service."

"She said yesterday: 'I could be dead by then."

I think that is what they are hoping for. Just because it is the government, doesn't mean they won't try to deny or delay coverage whenever possible to save a buck, or pound in this case.

Meanwhile, the American system has completely denied an old woman her hearing aid because she has no money to buy one due to pre-existing conditions keeping her out of any heath plan.

dillenger69

Meanwhile, the woman who had an ounce of sense and invested towards her retirement for the past 100 years is currently enjoying her brand spankin' new hearing aid.

Shouldn't her kids buy her one?

It would be better if she was in a system where she couldn't afford it in the first place.

Meanwhile, the PTB are having one of their OMGLOLZTEHBRITS days. Meh.

I fail to see how this unfortunate case shows the supposed downside to a country fulfilling its responsibility to have a system of caring for the needy.

Yes, take them to task for bearing inefficiencies that result in not giving the woman her necessary equipment.

No, don't ignore the obvious: If the woman was on an HMO back in the States, she'd still be screwed. And there'd be millions of others who didn't have any health needs covered. Furthermore, it's not as though one can't purchase it for market value in a country with social health care; only that they won't have to purchase it for market value in most cases.

/obvious
//obvious
///too farking obvious

SurfaceTension: Lol. Yea same idea.

cyhunter

No, don't ignore the obvious: If the woman was on an HMO back in the States, she'd still be screwed. And there'd be millions of others who didn't have any health needs covered.

Oh, but they will ignore the obvious. It's much easier to be selectively ignorant than to admit you were wrong.

Anyone who wants it can get American Style "Health-Care" in the UK. Almost nobody bothers (except rich people with more money than sense.) And you would have to be mentally ill to let the private sector have anything to do with birth or child care where they have a terrible record.

At 108 years old, she's prolly heard it all by now.

Like why wait till the last minute to worry about her hearing. She should of applied ten years back.

/no cookies for me, huh granny?

Looks like she's stuck with her old analogue hearing aid for the next 18 months, which is crap, but it's not like she can't hear anything at all, and it's not like she's getting any worse treatment than she'd get in the US if she was as unable to pay privately there as she is here. Non-story.

Gund Shouldn't her kids buy her one?


They probably all have died of old age.

Well played, submitter. Your one instance of one person being underserved by a national healthcare system has shown me the evils of the single-payer system. Thank God we don't have such things happening in this country.

Honestly, I don't see much of a problem. Yes she's old and could easily keel over at any given moment, but if they make an exception for her, where does it end? If you give her a hearing aid without having to wait on the list like others, suddenly you've got the grandkids of Great Grandpappy John Doe suing the pants off of you because you didn't do the same for their elderly family member.

If there's a waiting list, there's a waiting list. Period. It might sound harsh, but it's a fact.

According to the article, the digital hearing aid she wants costs over 1,000 pounds sterling.

That's a little over $2,000 USD at current exchange rates.

That seems a bit high, in my opinion. I'm no expert on hearing aids, but a few minutes of searching on Google found several digital hearing aids that can provide clear sound throughout the audible spectrum for about $600-$800 USD.

Expensive, yes, but not nearly $2,000 USD. If immediately necessary, her 52 year old granddaughter should be able to scrape up the cash. Hell, she could probably put up a website, accept donations, and buy one in a few weeks with no costs other than webhosting.

Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's government bureaucracy at its finest. No, it's not the end of the world.

Clearly, this one extreme example proves that the whole idea of providing healthcare for everyone is foolish. Obviously, Mrs Beal and the rest of the world would be far better off in a system that provided little to no healthcare for about 1/3 of its citizens. Who knows? Her pre-existing hearing condition might not disqualify her for coverage.

oh, like you need to hear anything when you're 108 anyway.

Mighty_Dog

You seem to forget when we kicked Australia's ass.

Hey submitter, there is never going to be a perfect health care system. It's just a question of whats most likely to work for the benefit of all.

Wow, over there they actually live to be 108? Sounds like a good deal to me.

paging flat headed morons who will use this as an example of how giving health care to people who don't have any is a bad idea...

Damned right submitter! Here in America she could sell homegrown pot to finance a new hearing aid.

In the US she'd be covered under Medicare which is the US's socialized medicine program for everyone over the age of 65.

Despite the fact that we in the US have private health coverage the government (US and state taxpayers) spends more money per person on healthcare than any other country.

My goodness, she'll die without that hearing aid!

Wait, no.

Pah.

I think it's also fair to say that Mrs Beal living 30 years beyond the average life expectancy for a US citizen proves how deeply flawed the British healthcare system is.

And my common-in-law wife of 25 years was denied a liver transplant and eventually died while the two second rate celebrities in the rooms on either side of her's were getting their second transplants.
At least that old woman will be getting a farking hearing aid.

Advanced technology is a privilege, not a right!

/learn to sign
//get off my lawn

how'd I do?

Oh heypete, those prices are per ear. I've bought my mom 2 pairs of hearing-aids over the past 10 years. Each aid was $800 for her first analogue set, and $950 for each of her digital aids.

I was sort of on the fence about the universal health care issue, but this article really has shown me the light.

It's like they say: you get what you pay for, and that's why you never hear about US hospitals amputating the wrong limb or performing the wrong surgery or giving the wrong treatment or anything. I'd rather pay a lot out of pocket to guarantee quality healthcare than to take my chances having to wait a year and a half for a new hearing aid.

kraut7: Look on the bright side, she won't be able to hear the grim reaper coming.

lol

What those morons that enjoy whining about "OMG SOCIALISM!" miss is that, like anyone in britain, if that old lady prefers to just pay for it then she can just pick up the money and buy it. Yet, if she doesn't have the money then she can get one anyway, as long as she doesn't mind being placed on a waiting list.

You see, a civilized society understands that access to healthcare should not depend on income or social status and that no one should be barred from medical treatment due to being poor or even not affording the pricetags which amount to extortion. Only third world countries find handling health care like a luxury good and that it must be a for profit business acceptable.

Mighty_Dog: Rationing as a result of central planning; might sound harsh, but it's a fact.

You may want to ask a German about a government making sure everyone has access to healthcare without central planning or any such.

VwlssWndr: for a new hearing aid.

I see what you did there.

SkankingMRH: it is almost pointless to post in these threads (I guess I am masochistic).

Regardless of how many times people who live with single-payer systems, such as yours and mine, express their satisfaction with the system in general - the opponents seem to want to point out the flaws.

For the record: I know there are flaws with our systems, but overall the benefits far out-weigh the costs.

Hooray for socialized medicine.

Why the unmitigated gall of some people. You mean they didn't bend over backwards and throw the guidelines out the window for her simply because she's older?

That's just monsterous.

/every problem is a crisis when it's yours.

Rob1855x: Hooray for socialized medicine.

Yep, because without it she'd have no waiting list and no chance of a digital hearing aid at all.

Perhaps a better question to have asked the woman in question is which system she would prefer to be acquiring health care from? She has undoubtedly lived before the institution of socialized medicine in the UK.

I would think that if she could not afford a hearing aid now under the public system, she most certainly would not be able to under a private system (not that any private insurance company would cover someone that old anyway).

NO YOU CAN'T HAVE A HEARING AID
NOT YOURS

/Eh? What?

We can set you up with one of these in the meantime...

ho ho!

Ah yes our terrible free health care, crikey, it must be bliss in the US where you just let people die.

Ho de farking ho.

carry on numpties.

Yay, it's a socialized medicine thread!

I'm not certain one way or the other on this issue, but I have several pressing concerns.

First, if I am forced to pay for other people's medical care, than their stupid behavior becomes my problem. There is an obesity epidemic because people eat too much unhealthy food and get almost no exercise. They are informed that this is bad for them, but they like the taste and don't want to do shiat. Fine by me... choice => consequence. However, if I am forced to pay for their quad-bypass, they should be forced to be more "healthy" to protect the bottom line. Now who gets to decide what that is?

Next, our culture is afraid of death to the extreme. Many people will keep somebody who is 92 years old with extreme dementia and dying of a wide array of ailments alive on a feeding tube and machines until the last possible moment. Or, for example, a baby born with its heart on the outside. The technology to keep them alive by machine is getting better and better, and the emotionally charged situation will never allow enough to be enough unless there is some bottom line. If a person wants to pay to keep somebody on lifesupport with a 10% change of recovery after two years, good for them. If they want me to pay for it, I think they should ask first don't you? Who decides?

In addition, I hardly have to mention the 20 million or so illegal immigrants who work without labor laws below the poverty line.

Maybe we need to find out why the health insurance industry and medical costs in general have turned into such a behemoth. I know it hasn't always been this way.

The hearing aid service in one part of the country is unreasonably slow, therefore the concept of basic healthcare for all is broken, QED ?

It's in the Daily Mail, so there's likely to be a healthy dose of misrepresentation, but if there's a limited availability of hearing aid services, and Eastern and Coastal Kent Primary Care Trust appear both to acknowledge that there is and claim to be working on it, should we be putting 108 year olds who already have a hearing aid, as opposed to people newly needing hearing aids, to the head of the list ?

The reason healthcare in the US is so expensive is because:
1) There are not nearly enough doctors and the rate at which med schools expands their enrollment is ridiculously slower than population growth driving up prices
2) Drug companies in the US are protected by patent laws allowing them to profit from costly research, thats also the reason the rest of the world can pay less because they just tend to make the drugs we produce and sell them for less.

Private healthcare drives innovation, socialize it at your own risk. The real problem in America's healthcare sector isn't private market forces though, it's the fact that the number of new doctors entering the workforce is far under the market level and so the price of medical services are ridiculously inflated.

But hey that's fine, keep bashing free markets, you can even socialize it, but like poor old granny you're not gonna escape the invisible hand which is just gonna make you pay in time instead of cash now, and last I checked granny's time didn't contribute to the economy whereas her cash would have.