In message 485d8aa0@qaanaaq, at 00:11:28 on Sun, 22 Jun 2008, Andy
Hall remarked:

It all depends what hourly rate the dentist needs to earn where
he lives.
That would only set the bare minimum.
Minimum what?
Remuneration.
But for what lifestyle?

For the one that the market will support.

Perhaps the market (for dentistry) will only support an average
lifestyle, and the porsche-wannabes are now in the wrong profession.

I wouldn't mind if people in London and the southeast had
significantly higher prescription charges and dental fees, to reflect
the higher delivery costs.

We already do. £7 for a prescription item is already £7 more than the
socialist promise of the 1940s. Some brave new world.......

Wrong answer. Would you pay £12 in the southeast, to reflect the higher
cost of premises for the retail pharmacists?

With only 10% of people paying for prescriptions, I do wonder why they
bother; so it must be to establish some sort of "benchmark" for people
who don't pay to know how much better off they are. To that end I'd be
very happy for NHS patients to be given a dummy bill that says roughly
how much their treatment cost, so maybe they'd be a little bit more
grateful. And in the context of prescriptions not waste the ones that do
cost large sums of money.

Time in hospital can be counted in days, but there's no fee.

There's a huge fee, taken in tax, but you don't realise it.

There's an insurance premium paid to the government. What you don't get
is a dummy bill that says:

Heart bypass operation: £15,000
Three weeks in hospital: £21,000
Medication for the next three months: £3,000

So you know what payback you've had.

It's all very well people saying things like "that $WASTEDMONEY could
have paid for 10 hip replacements" when the public has no idea how much
a hip replacement actually costs.

But I agree that filling in an insurance claim form for every £50, 7
minute, GP appointment is a really good way to waste time and money.

I presume that you have never filled in a healthcare claim form or
initiated a claim.

I've done it the USA many times. Usually you have to do it before
they'll treat you.

All that I have to do is to pick up the phone, call the insurer and
give a description of the ailment. 30 seconds and there is approval
for three months. Done.

I've been sat in a UK private hospital with everything "arranged", and
then suddenly the admin people say "sorry we've not received the
go-ahead for some reason - do you want to give us your credit card
number, or to come back when we've clarified this with your insurer".

But they can break even as long as they don't have Mercs?
That's the sort of thing, yes. And as you agreed in your reply,
having the latest Merc when you can't afford it is very much a
self-inflicted injury.
Circular argument. Why shouldn't it be possible for a dentist to
afford a Merc if they want one?
Or a road sweeper. (Own a Merc, not a dentist own a road sweeper!)

Huh?

Why does a dentist deserve a Merc if a road sweeper doesn't?

The Americans spend twice as much on healthcare as it costs to run
the NHS.

Citation?

It's a fairly well known statisitc, usually expressed as percentage of
GDP, I think.

And that's before you allow for the fact that a large proportion of
the public can't afford healthcare at all (so aren't spending anything).

Reference?

Again, there are many reports bemoaning the situation.

I've had no issues with medical insurance companies at all. What is
your personal experience of them?

Too many to list. But includes absolute bans on certain courses of
treatment, bans on treatment for some pre-existing conditions, delays in
getting approval for treatment etc.

Have you tried quibbling with an American insurance company? I've
done both, and the NHS is easier every time.

Have you tried claiming from a UK insurer?

Yes. And they eventually paid, although bizarrely the consultant they
were paying me to see recommended that I would get better treatment
through the NHS than through the "ingrowing toenail motel" that was the
private sector's offering. Having found an NHS consultant (who happened
to work in a different town) he was also of the view that treatment
would be better delivered in his NHS hospital than anything he could
offer wearing his different hat in the private system.
--
Roland Perry