Not on a theoretical level, but how would you practically have to pay costs, access specialist doctors?

You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments
5 points

In the UK the cost of healthcare is included in a tax called National Insurance, it’s about 10% of wages. It can be thought of mostly as emergency use only. Mental health and minor ailments are not treated. If you want that kind of service you need to go private and most people cannot afford that so they go untreated. I know a newly qualified doctor who cannot find a job despite there being a shortage of doctors.

On the plus side, we do have a brand new aircraft carrier and a royal family.

permalink
report
reply
2 points

Your royal family isn’t brand new.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point
*

They say it’s a thousand years old and have no intention of changing anything. It makes sense because the world hardly changed since 927 so they might as well keep going with the same schtick.

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

It doesn’t really matter, but worth knowing, only a small amount of your national insurance goes toward NHS costs. The NHS is primarily funded by general taxation. Your National Insurance contributions largely go to paying for state pensions.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

That’s an excellent point, state pensions are a significant burden, particularly police. We need to look after those guys so they can continue to prosecute the unwinnable war on drugs.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

As an American, that’s a way higher tax than I expected. Does everyone pay it, even people earning under a certain threshold? In the US we have social security and Medicare that everyone has to pay.

permalink
report
parent
reply
4 points

If you earn under £1,048 a month you don’t pay.

Earn £1,048 to £4,189 a month is 12%

Over £4,189 a month is 2%.

That’s not a typo.

permalink
report
parent
reply

Asklemmy

!asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Create post

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it’s welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Icon by @Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de

Community stats

  • 7.4K

    Monthly active users

  • 5.6K

    Posts

  • 308K

    Comments