Insurance Blog

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Health Insurance and Care Abroad - Get Travel Medical Insurance!

Reading a blog post today from my Health Insurance Blog Blogger friend, got me thinking...
"You don't know how lucky you are" My parents used to say to me about going to places on exotic holidays...
Their parents would have likely said the same thing to them about the National Health Service - as kids they would have remembered their parents having to pay for the doctor on an ad hoc basis!

You never miss it until it's gone, or more importantly you don't notice it until you have to pay for it, and in the case of medical and health insurance at this holiday time of the year, it's yet another necessary cost of holidaying abroad.

Watching the news and the debate going on in the States about the health care reforms proposed by the President, that are being made out by the Media to be dividing the Nation....you can't help but laugh when you read that the right wingers are using the NHS system as an example of everything that could go wrong with a nationalised healthcare insurance scheme.
I can't wait to see Barack Obama's camp stand up and defend the NHS as the example of a health care system that all countries should be following!

Here's some thoughts from the Health Insurance Blog

Barack Obama is the Good Samaritan for US Health Care

Most of us are used to some type of health insurance in the the UK despite the existence of the ubiquitous free for all NHS.

In fact most UK citizens have purchased private medical insurance at some time or another!

Yep! surprising isn't it! But because we all travel we are probably as well versed in the vagaries of the medical insurance section of our travel insurance policies as we are with our compulsory car insurance!

Since the 1970's Brits have regularly bought medical insurance for their two week jaunt to the Costa del Sol and very many have had to claim and seen the workings of a foreign privatised health care system in action.

It is only then that we see the true worth of our NHS, when we have to participate in the bureaucracy of a claim when sick. We also get to see the standards of foreign care at the coal face!
Still, the good news about those sorts of health insurance covers found on a travel policy is that they will always repatriate you to good old Blighty and the awaitng NHS.

Most Brits like to visit our cousins in the United States.
This is when we come face to face with the fact that health care is not homogenous, especially when it comes to availablilty and more importantly - price!
Those travel insurance insurance policies suddenly treble in premium and all those exclusions to cover such as pre-existing medical conditions suddenly become real concerns....the same sort of concerns that face the average American daily!

Even with Insurance - you don't wan't to get ill in America. You especially don't want to get ill for a chronic amount of time - all health insurasnce policies have strict limits of liability!
What if the money runs out?

In the Land of the Free there is no human safety net! (if you can't pay)

Charles Darwin would have loved it!

Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan?

From the right wing noises of middle american rabble rousing grannies shouting on about abortions and illegal immigrants that we see every night on CBS and ABC news ..... I don't think so! Try Luke!

Well you all go to church on Sunday dressed up in you finery, or is that just Hollywood agitprop to satisfy the lunatics of the Bible belt?

So step forward Barack Obama, determined to bring some social justice to the cities and peoples of America. The Good Samaritan who refused to walk on by on the issue of Health Care.

From the looks on the faces of those church going grannies and their militia sons who are dressed up for Afghanistan, and their kids dressed up like neo cons from The Matrix.....I just hope you're wearing extra strong Kevlar Barack, because in some parts of your divided nation that's the only healthcare you will need!

Labels: Barack Obama, Health Care Cover, health insurance, medical expenses cover, NHS, travel medical insurance, US Healthcare, USA

Labels: Barack Obama, health care, health insurance, NHS, private health insurance, Private Medical Insurance, travel insurance, travel medical insurance, UK government, US health reform

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

UK Health Insurance- From the Cradle to the Queue

Health and Wealth! Isn't that what eveyone drinks to?
A look at UK Health Insurance and National Wealth.

Britain was still reeling from World War Two when the National Health Service was launched in 1948, sweeping in an era of social change and expectation.
Gone were the days of ‘bring out your dead’ if you couldn’t afford to pay.
Despite many changes over the sixty one years and its recent flirtations with Private Health Insurance companies, the so called postcode lottery system and other structural difficulties, the NHS has remained true to the ethos of access for all.
No system is perfect and spatial differences in levels of access and quality of care still need to be radically addressed.

In the UK when the National Health Service was finally implemented in 1948 as part of Labour Prime Minister Clement Attlee's 'cradle to the grave' welfare state.
A nationwide system of free healthcare was finally launched by Aneurin Bevan the then Minister of Health, which promised us access to health care cover and treatment for all.
The cradle to the grave speech mentality had set the standards for social healthcare and access to treatment for all.
To date, despite its recent structural changes, and despite the healthy criticism and debate that the subject of the NHS always brings, if you look at the system in performance and social cohesion you have to say that it appears to work much better as a form of national health insurance than do comparative systems in so called developed countries. This development in healthcare is always a subject of great debate in the lead up to a General Election, and no doubt will take greater stage in the months to come

Everyone working in the UK has to pay National Insurance contributions as part of their income in order for the system to work, and facilitating everyone in the UK with medical cover.
However National Insurance contributions are not a good solution for a number of reasons.
They increase the costs of labour.
By definition this makes them inflationary.
The costs of production are passed onto the populace en masse
The contributions are by no means equitable
Many sections of the population are able to virtually opt out of the contribution system
The NHS is heavily subsided by the tax contributions of the healthy and wealthy forty percent plus payers.

Whether the United States Government is able to take what could be seen as a major left shift to achieve better social cohesion and consequently improved GDP, remains to be seen.
Are the workers prepared to subsidize the shirkers and the misfortunate? There needs to exist a situation both economically, socially and mentality, of desperation and hope that existed in the UK in 1945, in order to see a fiscal response to the current situation, biting the healthcare bullet that the USA is so afraid to bite. Providing the ultimate National Safety Net!

The States is in the difficult situation of how to deal with chronic sickness, the recession, the role of PMI as an underwriter of GDP and the political influence and lobbying power of the large Health Insurance companies. Rather you than me Barrack!

Gordon Brown should note that Private Health Insurance became one of the first things people were encouraged to buy when her who’s name shall not be spoken came to power in 1979.

Labels: Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, health insurance, health insurance quotes, medical insurance, NHS, PMI, private health insurance, Private Medical Insurance, UK government

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Health Insurance as a complimentary contingency

Should we really have to think about health insurance?

Why do we need it?

Whatever happened to 'the cradle to the grave'?

From what we read about the state of British hospitals you may be better off with a good legal expenses policy with extra medical negligence cover, or perhaps some sort of lifestyle insurance cover that allows you to recuperate on a desert island far from MRSA and C-difficile infected wards.

Insurance Blogger did need some major surgery last year and although the treatment I got in an NHS hospital was as good as anywhere else I had to wait.........

Not good if your complaint is life or lifestyle threatening and time is of the utmost importance.....

So Health Insurance is a must for anyone who can afford it. Check out the pros and cons and compare a selection of the best UK Health Insurance Quotes at http://www.healthinsurancequotes.org.uk.

Labels: health insurance, health insurance quotes, medical insurance, private health insurance