Reply #4: You'd better hope that doesn't happen

[Lydia Leftcoast]

You'll be in the same mess that we Americans are: increasingly unaffordable insurance premiums to companies that deny your claims and force doctors to spend hours per week on paperwork--and pay their CEOs multimillion dollar bonuses while claiming that the rises in premiums and cuts in benefits are due to anything but their own greed.

Patients hate it more and more every year. People who used to be satisfied with their insurance are finding that their premiums are going up as coverage goes down. Doctors like my brother hate it, because the companies will think up any excuse they can to deny payment. (Private doctors here have no guaranteed income except what insurance companies or patients pay them.)

Whatever flaws the NHS has, undo the Thatcherite "reforms" and fund it decently, and you'll be miles ahead of us.

P.S. Do you know what a "deductible" is? Mine is $5,000 (£2,500). That means that I'm fully responsible for the first $5,000 of medical expenses. After $5,000, the insurance company pays 80%. That's right. If I were to need $100,000 worth of medical treatment, I would be responsible for $24,000 of it, more than half my annual income. For the privilege of not owing the full $100,000, I pay the insurance company $210 a month. If I wanted a lower deductible, the monthly premium would be completely unaffordable. My sin is being over the age of 50.

That, my dear cedric, is the reality of private medical care.

Oh, and when I was in the UK last summer, I read that United Health is one of the companies itching to get its filthy fingers into your medical system.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

United Health is headquartered here in Minnesota. It is so sleazy, even by the generous standards applied to insurance companies, that the state attorney general does not allow it to sell policies here.