WesleyRocks
Dedicated Member
Well all, I turned down the position. If you want to know more, PM me. Thanks for all the well wishes and prayers.
Take care,
Wesley
Take care,
Wesley
Golden opportunity
- Thread starter WesleyRocks
- Start date
brendalovescompo
Dedicated Member
Sounds like you were the man for the job, but the job wasn't for you! Good to be able have the control instead of them controlling you. At least that sounds like the situation. Sorry things didn't turn out the way you envisioned it. :respect: For Wesley Rocks!!!!!!
codfanglers
Dedicated Member
Well Darin, I have been peaking in and out of this thread for a while. I hope you made the right decision. Teaching in America today is no picnic! Every year the demands on public school teachers increase. I am approaching year no. 10. For some people it is a calling. For others, it is brutal.
If you or your wife's job offer good benefits and you are both content, then you likely made the right decision.
If you or your wife's job offer good benefits and you are both content, then you likely made the right decision.
I'm intrigued by your health system. I've had this conversation with other American friends and I'm quite mystified by the way your employers have a hold over your medical treatment, I know its via the insurance companies ( Which to me is also a bit scary) but I suppose its what you're used to. What are you opinions on our NHS?
brendalovescompo
Dedicated Member
Our government is trying to head in that direction. I just have hearsay from online from people in Canada. People who need an operation to save their life and they come to the US for surgery. Seen someone had cancer and had to wait 2 years just to start a treatment.
How is it over there? If you are ill do you go to dr of your choice, and get direct treatment? I had a problem with a bad cough, it was bad, not producing anything. (sorry gross). I went to Dr. , they wanted me to get an MRI, and they said they thought it was Cancer in my lungs. My lymph nodes were as big as a golf balls. It ended up being Sarcoidosis and I went to a specialist at Vanderbilt University and within 4 months being treated with high doses of steroids I have been in remmission ever since. Going on 8 years now.
Having those symptoms in your country what would you do?
Well, about 3 years ago I had a cough for a few weeks so whet to the doctors he sent me for an xray, I whet the next day and two days later got called into see the doctor again who said it was a bad infection and gave me antibiotics. usually if you ring the doc you get in that day if its urgent and you don't mind which doc you see within the the practice, for xrays and the like we can just walk in with a letter from the doc and be done there and then ( Not sure if thats the same all over the country) to see a specialist you have to wait a few weeks depending what your symptoms are. For cancer and I have experiance with this you usually get to see the specialist within 2 weeks and any ops are done within weeks of that, 2 years sounds very bad and I'm not aware of it happening here. You do have to wait around a lot in the hospitals and in doctors waiting rooms but we don't have to go through an insurance company to pick and chose what you can have or not have its all done between the doctor and the hospital and in some cases you get to pick which hospital you want.
brendalovescompo
Dedicated Member
Insurance companies and drug companies are what I would call the root to all of the evil in health care. They are making money hand over fist. It is a money making business.
I hear of Canada being bad, but like I said , you only hear of the bad situations. Not sure if it is all like that. Now we have problems with illegals in our hospitals and I have a friend who has no insurance, does not qualify for Obama care, and has something wrong in her abdomen area. She had been to ER 4 times and they don't really do anything but give her pain meds and tell her to see specialist. She can't she had no money, lost her job 4 years ago. Her daughter in law got a kidney test(she is nurse), and stones were ruled out. It could be her bowels, female area, spine area. It is a shame she cannot see anyone. I did find that people can get free mental health care, depression, anxiety..
Marianna
Dedicated Member
Short answer — I would give my eye teeth for a system similar to the NHS, but funded better. My reasons follow. Warning - very long saga.
I've had to seek medical treatment in the UK several times while visiting there. The first time, I just walked into the NHS clinic in the Cotswold's village where I was lodging, with a minor infection. I waited less time to be seen than I would have waited in my primary care doctor's office with an appointment, the entire staff was courteous and the problem was correctly diagnosed and effectively treated.
The second time was in Huddersfield, again for a minor infection. That time, the NHS clinic was some distance away from my lodgings and in a bad neighborhood, so I phoned around until I found an NHS doctor who was not on vacation. I reached his office at 10 AM and was given an appointment for 6 PM. I was seen promptly, he correctly diagnosed the problem and prescribed an antibiotic according to the current standard protocol. After 36 hours the treatment was only partly effective, so I phoned the office, named the combination antibiotic that I usually take for that problem, and received a prescription for it as soon as he came in from his morning house calls.
The third time was much worse. Upon arriving for a day-trip to Nuneaton I caught the sole of my shoe on a bit of rough, humped up macadam that had been applied to otherwise smooth paving as a lane divider at a car park entrance a few yards from the rail station. Of course, I fell hard. Fortunately I landed on my wrist (the right one, and my dominant hand) and broke it rather than landing on my hip and breaking that instead. Some very kind passers-by helped me up and along to a nearby storefront where they saw a sofa just inside the door. It turned out to be a taxi company's office, and the dispatcher phoned one of their drivers to take me to the the George Eliot hospital (local NHS) A&E department.
Once there, I was seen promptly because the waiting room wasn't crowded with patients who hadn't been able to afford primary care. In general, people seem to get good primary care under the NHS, so they don't have to wait until a problem becomes a life-threatening emergency in order to get treatment at an emergency room. Until the Affordable Health Care law came into effect here on January 1st, many people couldn't afford insurance nor to pay for primary care out of pocket, so they waited until their health problems qualified for emergency care because most emergency rooms are obliged to provide care to all comers. To reimburse themselves, the hospitals had to constantly increase their rates, which increased out-of-pocket costs and insurance premiums for those of us who could afford insurance. So all of the paying patients eventually paid for charity care for the uninsured.
At the George Eliot A&E I was treated with the greatest respect and sympathy, and quickly X-rayed. Just as quickly, the emergency room doctor sent the X-rays upstairs to the head of orthopedics to determine whether a cast would be sufficient or if surgery to install an external fixator would be required. The orthopedist determined that because I had stated my intention of abandoning my vacation and flying home within the next few days, a plaster back-slab splint would keep the fracture aligned while leaving a narrow opening to allow for the swelling that would happen due to the changes in altitude. The splint was quickly and skillfully applied and I was discharged with a copy of the doctor's notes and a copy of my X-rays on a DVD for delivery to my local orthopedics practitioners.
If I had been sensible, the fracture would have been fine until I got home and could get a full cast applied, but because my fingers were free to move, I used them for packing my luggage and various other chores. When I got home, the first thing I did was drive my manual transmission car to the gym (impossible to drive one-handed) to tell my trainer why I wouldn't be working out for a while, and to get his advice about what turned out to be a bone bruise on the right tibial plateau. A couple of days later, I drove to the local orthopedics office for a follow-up appointment. The physician's assistant had the wrist X-rayed and found that the fractured bone ends had slipped and had begun to heal in that position. So the next day I had out-patient surgery to re-break the fracture and set it with an external fixator. I'm still kicking myself for not keeping the arm in the sling that I was given in the A&E department to ensure that it was immobilized and useless until I could have a full cast applied!
Marianna
Marianna
Dedicated Member
The only reason that there was no single-payer option (a.k.a. NHS) included as part of the Affordable Health Care act (now law) was that it was, and is, politically unfeasible. I'd like to get hold of the people who lobbied their representatives against that option and implant them with some common sense!
As for the Canadian system, that government's error was in decreasing funding for medical school fellowships, which eventually decreased the number of both primary care docs and specialists. As a result, Canada suffers, literally, from a serious shortage of physicians. Even so, Canadians who winter in Florida buy repatriation insurance so that they can be quickly transported home if they need medical care. It's worth the cost of the insurance because our medical care is prohibitively expensive.
Marianna
brendalovescompo
Dedicated Member
Oh wow, that was not good. Sounds like they took good care of you. I am glad you got seen overseas, not good to have rebroken to repair properly. I know 2 people who insurance doubled, they buy for their family and the small business they run. I don't know how this ACA is going to work out. I have thru my employer. I am lucky, not sure how long it will last.
Marianna
Dedicated Member
Bottom line, it's working out extremely well for me, and none of my personal acquaintances have had any complaints about it so far. In fact, one of my friends is much better off because she had to take an early retirement from an employer that doesn't offer a retirees' health insurance plan. Her COBRA eligibility expired long ago and she isn't old enough yet for Medicare. She was paying usurious premiums for a very low level of coverage and no coverage for her preexisting conditions. Now her premiums are reasonable for a very high level of coverage, including for her preexisting conditions and we, her friends, can stop worrying about her.
I have been on Medicare for a while, with my former employer's retirees' Medicare supplemental insurance. There were a few problems with the supplemental, though. One was that we had to either accept the insurance plan that they offered or buy on the open market. The kicker to that was that we couldn't have gotten coverage for preexisting conditions on the open market. So, who reaches age 65 without developing some chronic conditions?!
Another problem was that last year the premium for that insurance, secondary to Medicare, for a single person with no dependents was $195 per month. It was expected to be $262 this year, $313 next year and $370 in 2016.
With the inception of Affordable Care, my former employer was required to offer options with various levels of coverage at varying premiums. The option that worked out best for me is a Medicare Advantage plan with $0.00 premium. The coverage is exactly the same as I was getting for $195 per month. Co-pays are slightly higher than last year, but they would have increased anyway. Of course, I still have to pay for Medicare Part B at $104.90 per year. That's the same premium as 2013 because the cost of living didn't increase so there was no COLA to Social Security payments.
So far, I'm thrilled!
Marianna
Thats awful, that wouldn't happen here thank god. Everyone see's a doctor and specialist no matter how much money they have.
brendalovescompo
Dedicated Member
That's how it should be , but the greed rules here. Doctors sometimes abuse the system, ordering test that aren't really necessary, if you have insurance they just order what ever they can because the next guy may not have insurance, so we are going to get what we can from my insurance. I wish a friend of mine could be a charity case and get seen.
I wish your friend the very best, I find that situation in this day and age truly appalling.
barmpot
LOTSW Fanatic
I always thought the medical profession acted from the highest moral objectives; Hippocratic oath or such like (I know they do not really have to take the oath and it is no longer sworn to various greek gods in the plural) but there was this principle about what is best for the patient not the physician and so on.
Marianna
Dedicated Member
My asthma specialist has a copy of the Hippocratic oath displayed on the wall directly opposite the chair on the way back to the examining room where each patient sits to have his/her blood pressure taken. You can't miss it — it's kind of a reminder of what standard of treatment to expect from that medical practice. I've never seen it in any other doctor's office, though.
Marianna