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NHS waiting list statistics: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/Performancedataandstatistics/HospitalWaitingTimesandListStatistics/index.htm

Crime statistics: http://www.police.uk/

Unemployment: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/labour-market/people-not-in-work/unemployment

OK looks like my figures are a bit wrong. But after corrections the point still stands:

The NHS 2.7billion cost was just for England:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7654153.stm

Oxford uni says cost is 5 billion:
http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2009/090609_1.html

Tobacco tax revenue = 10.5 billion:
http://www.the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/tax-revenue-from-tobacco/

One has also to wonder whether the 5 billion is the absolute cost or a _relative_ cost increase compared to nonsmokers.

For example it's like saying dinner X costs 5 billion. But if you must have dinner anyway and the alternatives cost 2 billion, then the actual difference is 3 billion, despite dinner X indeed costing 5 billion.

Because nonsmokers also get sick, eventually die and thus also cost the NHS money :).

For example if a nonsmoker picked a lifestyle and diet which was super healthy (say steamed fish and vegetables) but as a result ended up surviving cancers a few times (they won't die from chemo, surgery, heart disease or stroke, because they're fit and healthy) and eventually dying at 95 after lingering in a nursing home (paid for by NHS[1]) with age onset dementia or Alzheimers (because they won't die of heart disease or strokes). So a lot of people picking a long walks, steamed fish and vegetables lifestyle might actually cost the NHS more billions than smoking does ;).

I've seen some pretty bullshit cost estimates too - one actually said that potential lost earnings from a smoker dying earlier = cost to society. Given that smokers tend to die near retirement or soon after, even if they are earning a lot it doesn't mean that them dying at that point would be such a great loss to the rest of society.

Lastly I'm a nonsmoker and have never smoked in my life (except via second hand smoke ). I don't like cigarette smoke (pipe smoke actually doesn't smell that bad), but to me it seems ridiculous for governments to ban away such great sources of tax revenue while making stupid noises about "aging populations".

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-13010087
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4002953

Despite low antibiotic use, the U.K. is let down by hospitals not suited to the isolation part of the solution- shared rooms and rapid turnover. Some figures are available here
In New Zealand, since 2001, the use of antibiotics has been minimised, and we saw a large fall in MRSA in 2003-2004.

The BBC is essentially an arm of the government.

...

It is much like the Obama healthcare "public" option. Publicly funded services will swamp privately funded ones and eventually the private ones will disappear. Yes, Fox News in the UK is threatened in this way by the BBC as insurance companies will be under Obamacare's public option.

There are two fallacies here, one is the public funding leads to government control and the other is the public and private funding can not coexist. The UK experience plainly shows the contrary.

Both the BBC and the NHS are publicly funded but they both have their own constitutions, charters and governing bodies which control them independently of the government of the day. The British might chose to elect a government that decides to override these protections. Similarly the US might chose to elect a government that on the one hand overrides the constitutional protections of the press, or on the other hand one that decides to create some form of public health care.

The idea that the NHS would drive out private practice in health care was the fear of many doctors when the service was set up, but over the sixty years of its existence this simply has not happened. Health care in the UK remains a mixture of private and public provision. There is co-operation between the two sectors.

The position in broadcasting is even stronger. While the BBC started as a state monopoly broadcaster this is no longer the case. Independent commercial radio and television stations have had a long existence in the terrestrial broadcasting and have expanded further with the onset of digital. Ironically Sky a Murdoch company was until the recent onset of Freesat the sole supplier of digital satellite broadcaster for the UK. Companies have set up profitable healthy businesses in this space despite the presence of the BBC.

Do most countries provide free health care (hell, even low cost care) to foreign travelers?

For non-European visiting foreigners, for example Americans visiting Britain, if you go to hospital you will be charged, but if you do not have medical insurance and do not have funds to cover it, it is highly unlikely that persuing the cost would be "in the public interest" and would in most cases simply be written off. I certainly wouldn't advise Americans to turn up in Accident and Emergency with a credit card in your wallet but no health insurance. That'd end up being expensive (by British standards).

As a non-EU citizen visiting the EU, if you require non-emergency treatment, such as a doctor's visit, you can only get it if you have medical insurance. You won't even get an appointment without it.

But presumably you will either be able to afford private medical insurance, or your government will provide subsidised or free medical insurance. If not, you won't be seen for non-emergency stuff, simple as that.

Some Commonwealth countries (former British Empire colonies and islands that have kept the Queen as their head of state, or have other close formal ties with Britain) also qualify for free treatment under the NHS. America is not one of those (you should have thought of that before you wasted all that tea).

If you are a European citizen, all hospital care within Europe is free. You do not need pirvate medical insurance. If you are visiting a foreign country within the EU, then all you need is your passport and an EHIC card, and your home country's health service will be cross-billed. Been there did that, when my daughter fell down some steps in France in June and needed two stitches.

As an EU citizen, once you're admitted to state-run hospital, there is no charge for anything. (Well, there are payphones, and you can pay extra to rent your own TV, buy candy from vending machines etc. But everything from basic meals and drinks, to medicine, to surgery, is free.)

For an EU citizen visiting a doctor, it varies. Either it's free and you just turn up (eg. UK) or you visit the doctor and then claim the vast majority of the costs back from the government (eg. France).

If the doctor prescribes medicine, then in some countries like the UK have a flat-rate charge (UK: about 7 quid per item per month, or you can get a pre-pay subscription for a tenner a month if you use more than one item per month on average), whilst other countries (eg. France) have a subsidy system where cheaper items are bought entirely privately (eg. asthma inhalers, antihistamines) but you can claim back costs for more expensive items (eg. antivirals, antibiotics).

The doctor may refer you to hospital to see a specialist. As soon as you touch hospital, it's all free. However if your condition is not urgent, there may be a long wait. Sometimes a VERY LONG WAIT.

The main use for private medical insurance is to jump these queues and to allow you to see an outpatient specialist straight away. Usually this would be at a private hospital, not a state-run hospital. In some European countries, all hospitals are private so everyone uses the same buildings, it's just a question of waiting for an appointment. In the UK, there are usually (but not always) separate NHS versus private hospitals.

Most medium and big towns have a state-run hospital, although it won't necessarily cover all services (eg. my local Winchcombe hospital doesn't have an Accident and Emergency ward; I have to travel to Tewkesbury or Cheltenham). Only really big cities (eg. Birmingham) or very rich towns (eg. Cheltenham) will have private hospitals.

Ambulance, fire and rescue call-outs are free, but if there is other non-medical insurance covering the accident (such as buildings fire insurance covering a fire, or motor insurance covering a car crash), then the i

Under the UK model, you pay about 11% national insurance tax on your income (which in your case would be nothing), and the healthcare is free at the point of need. That's the beauty of a national scheme - you don't buy into it, it's just there financed out of everybody's tax payments. Note that there are residency requirements, although accident and emergency treatment is always free (even for visitors), and there are reciprocal arrangements with many other European countries.

Whoops, wrong link. Here.

They don't single games out in the ads, there's a whole series of them. Most of the ones I've seen focus on what to do as opposed to what not to do.

I'd be surprised if they didn't have others showing watching TV and using a computer. They're probably not going to attack reading any time soon though, given the amount of money they've spent trying to persuade kids to read at all, and excessive reading is not noticeably a problem in UK youth.

Like I said before "eating nutritiously won't make you loose(sic) weight."

Yup. After reading a leaflet about "Five a Day" I started eating a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables and drinking lots of water at work, instead of chocolate and crisps and fizzy drinks, and I gained a lot of weight. I mean, I felt great - I had loads of energy, never felt hungry, and I looked and felt generally healthier - great. Shame about gaining about gaining so much weight.

Of course it wasn't until a couple of weeks later while we were out shopping that my girlfriend pointed out that it's meant to be five *portions* of fresh fruit and vegetables per day, not five *kilos*...

COMPLETELY FREE.

what better thing to hear from your GP saying "we will continue doing whatever tests you need until YOU are completely satisfied and sure it is IBS (although the doctor already told you it is IBS but you want to be 200% sure)"

First of all: Terrorists are a quite minor thread to your life

Second of all: If we would wage war on every potential killer of yours, we would have to concentrate the forces first on you, then on your mother, then on your stepfather (if you have one), then your biological father. Those four persons are the most probable to take your life. They are responsible for about 50% of all homicides.

Third: There is no direct relation between cause and effect in terrorist attacks. The most recent attempt to a terrorist attack in Germany I know of was a man who planned to carbomb a bank. Not for political reasons, but because of bad service. What's next? Battle against the Customer?

I'd imagine there are exceptions for police in pursuit of a criminal and emergency ambulances.

(interestingly here in the UK we have the police exception (very limited - police speeding off duty would get fine/points just like everyone else) but no ambulance exception.. (although it's not enforced for them since 2004: http://www.dh.gov.uk/PublicationsAndStatistics/Pre ssReleases/PressReleasesNotices/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=4 084924&chk=vip3jh )

Only 7% of cataract patients wait > 6 months. See this study in the BMJ, table 1.

"Despite widespread political and media attention little empirical evidence exists on the distribution of waiting and prolonged waiting in England. In most instances substantial numbers of patients waiting longer than six months in the main surgical specialties are restricted to a relatively small proportion of hospitals."

In other words, you'd be pretty unlucky to get a 2 year wait. And right now, there are no patients waiting more than 12 months. Zero. None. Nada.

Even before the waiting lists were cleared up a bit recently, the problem was overblown by the press. They pick up on individual anecdotes of long waiting times which were newsworthy *because* they are unusual, but constantly parading these cases gave the impression that long waiting periods were normal.

"There are 16 haemagglutinin subtypes of Influenza A (designated 1-16), and 9 neuraminidase subtypes (1-9). While relatively few infect humans, all have been detected in free-flying birds which can harbour the viruses without their causing symptoms. Since 1959, rare, but serious, outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in poultry have been caused by H5 and H7 virus subtypes. These were thought to cause only mild symptoms such as conjunctivitis in humans. However, since an outbreak of H5N1 infection in poultry in Hong Kong in 1997, these viruses have been shown to be able to jump the species barrier and cause severe infection with a high mortality in humans.

So far these viruses only appear to have spread from person to person with difficulty, and with no further onward transmission, but concern is twofold:

• That step-wise adaptation of the viruses will give them greater affinity to infect and transmit between humans;
• That exchange of genetic material between the avian and a 'regular' circulating human virus - during co-infection, for example, in a pig or possibly a person - will have the same effect.

The longer the outbreaks of H5N1 influenza that took hold in Asia in early 2004 last - and there are signs that the virus has become endemic in birds in the region - the more likely it is thought to be that a new virus will emerge. Even if the ability of the virus to cause disease in humans is attenuated, the potential remains for a future virus with pandemic potential to emerge and spread. Such a strain is likely to be antigenically different from the H5N1 strains currently circulating in Asia.

The degree of cross protection that would be afforded by an H5N1 vaccine prepared against the current H5N1 strain cannot be predicted."

The current bird flu outbreak is worrying because it could very easily jump to humans. And if the 1918 example is anything to go by, it would kill the 'healthiest' people most efficiently, by causing their immune system to overreact and destroy their lungs.

So yes, you might worry, but not too much because there's not a lot you can do about it.

The British use a National service framework to determine who gets what in healthcare. As opposed to, "Do you have insurance?" in the US. "The National Service Framework sets five standards and identifies 30 markers of good practice which will help the NHS and its partners manage demand, increase fairness of access and improve choice and quality in dialysis and kidney transplant services." My point is NOT that they have it perfect, just that they don't use money as the determining factor for who gets what healthcare. (I think thats more fair.)

As to distributed software development and incremental changes, vs. the expense of drug development, I just wanted to point out that other systems also work for making drugs. The way the US does drug research now isn't how it was done in the past; Corporations used to do *much* more research by funding University and hospital researchers and studies.

The restriction of knowledge in drug companies goes hand-in-hand with IP Laws that effect software. We can change the rules in both areas to get more of what we want by focusing on fairness, but this will mean taking away profits (and power) from vested interests.

again, as this threads originator said: This fight is about taking ideas out of the hands of a few powerful entities with a vested interest in maintaining their power, and shifting it to everyone.