Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave~
I know a little about their National Health Insurance, but not a lot. I'd like to find out more about it, hence the question.
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in the UK, we don't have "national health insurance" - we have "National Insurance" though which works as a mandatory tax that is deducted from people's wages and goes towards paying for the NHS. There are varying degrees of National Insurance - from paying the standard £2.30 ($4.60) a week for low earners to paying up to 11% of your income if you earn between £105 and £770 per week.
National Insurance goes in the big pot that pays for pensions, the NHS and several other things. Essentially, the NHS is a free system at the point of care. If you break your arm or get ill and need to go to the doctors surgery, you simply turn up and you receive your treatment. No payment is involved at all (apart from taxes of course!)
On the whole, the system works well. While we Brits tend to spend a lot of time complaining about it (as we spend time complaining about most things), we'd be lost without it. The NHS has been around for over 50 years and all major political parties have it high on their agenda to sustain it and expand it.
Dan