Is the NHS the envy of the world???

The fact any British citizen can walk in a hospital and not get shafted with a bill up their arse means it's a fantastic service.

What is so 'medieval' about them?

Some of the things that are apparently totally normal in NHS facilities and that I suppose British people wouldn't even notice seem absolutely shocking to someone used to an American level of care. To take just one example, my GP in Oxford had scales and a blood pressure machine out in the waiting room, where you were expected to take your own measurements and then tell the doctor. Everywhere I've been in the States, a nurse comes to collect you from the waiting room, takes you to a private room where she takes your vitals, then takes you to an exam room where you wait for the doctor. You also take all the time you need with the doctor (as opposed to these 10 min squished in slots where they hustle you in and out and you're only allowed to talk about one issue per visit) and an American doctor might order some tests (x-rays or scans or blood tests) which you get within half an hour and often discuss with the doctor immediately after, which I contrast with when I was told I would need to wait 6 months for a scan by the GP in London.

More generally, the NHS facilities appear dingy, run-down, and less clean compared to the ones you get here.

Some of the things that are apparently totally normal in NHS facilities and that I suppose British people wouldn't even notice seem absolutely shocking to someone used to an American level of care. To take just one example, my GP in Oxford had scales and a blood pressure machine out in the waiting room, where you were expected to take your own measurements and then tell the doctor. Everywhere I've been in the States, a nurse comes to collect you from the waiting room, takes you to a private room where she takes your vitals, then takes you to an exam room where you wait for the doctor. You also take all the time you need with the doctor (as opposed to these 10 min squished in slots where they hustle you in and out and you're only allowed to talk about one issue per visit) and an American doctor might order some tests (x-rays or scans or blood tests) which you get within half an hour and often discuss with the doctor immediately after, which I contrast with when I was told I would need to wait 6 months for a scan by the GP in London.

More generally, the NHS facilities appear dingy, run-down, and less clean compared to the ones you get here.

But in the USA you pay a premium for that, we can pay for private healthcare too (which is apparently nicer) if we so wish.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my E15i

From what I've heard in the USA they get you to do all the bells and whistles (extra scans and the like) in order to get more money from insurance. No idea if this is true, but my unlce fell over or something, just a light bump apparently, and they wanted to do an MRI.

This is partially true. When they told me about the 6 month wait, I immediately found a private hosptal in London and had it done the next day; it was shiny, new, well staffed and equipped--essentially indistinguishable from an American hospital. But British people who want to do that end up paying double: for the NHS through their taxes and for their private healthcare on top of that. It is even more expensive beyond that because you don't commonly get discounted or subsidised health insurance through your employer, and have to sort out a plan on your own or just pay up front.

I believe that free healthcare is something every nation should aspire too. I don't quite understand why so many Americans are against it.

It is very strange. It was on the BBC website the other day how loads of Americans donated to pay for the healthcare of an uninsured victim of the batman shooting. In all the interviews the people were like "This is terrible, we must help him", yet when it comes to free public healthcare most of them consider it a disgusting, dirty idea! The human mind, I understand it not.

Americans pay more for healthcare per person in tax than the british do though, i hope you realize.

I think you must have misread your source

No that's a definite fact. They pay more in tax towards their healthcare per capita than we do, and then they pay a premium on top.

Again, I think you must be mistaken. I would like to see a source for this, because it is most likely a misreading based on data that the total amount paid is greater, but not in tax.

I don't know what the source was, it was something that I went through in another debate just like this on this site. It wasn't misread. It is that the amount paid from public tax money is greater.

Pretty sure new zealand has state health care though?

It would be nice if there was a source for such a claim, as it both contradicts what I've read and seems very unlikely.

As I've noted before, the NHS can best be described as the envy of the third world. It provides reasonably-acceptable health care, free at the point of entry, which is beyond the wildest dreams of someone in the Sudan, but coming from the States it's pretty shocking how medieval a lot of the facilities and procedures are in comparison. I think a lot of British people just don't know that there's anything better, and of course are constantly told how much everyone envies them.