Return to Oz after 10 years

[Blue Manna]

45 minutes ago, Parley said:

I think the rules are different if you are required to see a GP required by your employer.

If you are claiming long term stress leave or something similar and your employer wants verification from a doctor they use, then that can happen. I expect you signed something at the time.

Surely the employer would pay in that case?

[InnerVoice]

10 hours ago, Blue Manna said:

The future of the NHS. People will need to start contributing.

Have you forgotten about National Insurance? People contribute all their working lives. I recall the current government increased it by 1% fairly recently too.

[Blue Manna]

1 minute ago, InnerVoice said:

Have you forgotten about National Insurance? People contribute all their working lives. I recall the current government increased it by 1% fairly recently too.

National insurance is a labour con. It is just a tax they can increase and say they haven't increased taxes. But it's a rod for their own back, as a lot of stupid people think they have paid for their pension and NHS. They haven't. But it will make it harder to means test it. But they will.

[InnerVoice]

10 minutes ago, Blue Manna said:

National insurance is a labour con. It is just a tax they can increase and say they haven't increased taxes. But it's a rod for their own back, as a lot of stupid people think they have paid for their pension and NHS. They haven't. But it will make it harder to means test it. But they will.

Oh, you mean the entire British electorate? How could they be so ignorant to think that the government would actually spend their NICs on what they are supposed to.

[Parley]

37 minutes ago, Blue Manna said:

Surely the employer would pay in that case?

Yes they would

[Nemesis]

2 hours ago, Parley said:

I think the rules are different if you are required to see a GP required by your employer.

If you are claiming long term stress leave or something similar and your employer wants verification from a doctor they use, then that can happen. I expect you signed something at the time.

If that was aimed at me, then a) I was seeing a GP independently, nothing to do with my employer. My boss only knew because I had supplied a sick note for 2 days the previous week. I was paying the bill, naturally.

I have never in my life taken stress leave or anything similar. This ailment was nothing to do with my job.

Assumptions can be dangerous, thought you'd know that!.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Nemesis

[InnerVoice]

On 05/11/2023 at 05:43, pob said:

Every time we see the doctor it costs us $100!

When my wife needed pain medication she was denied it and told that pain is only a state of mind by the doctors.

What she needed was a couple of days on morphine due to her injuries, what she got was a couple of paracetamol instead.

In the hospital there was over flowing bins of bandages with puss and blood on them.

I asked nursing staff if they would like me to remove the needles in my wife's arm because the way they were doing it was causing her pain and injury.

Yes the NHS is far from perfect. But you do not need to pay to see a doctor do you. You would be given pain medication if you had shattered your leg and were constantly crying and the only time you stopped crying was when you passed out due to pain levels, which is dangerous.

Sorry to hear that when your wife got sick she had a bad experience in the Australian healthcare system. On the contrary, my wife needed an urgent operation last year and had a great experience. She saw her GP on the Friday, who gave her a referral letter, then I took her to A&E and she was admitted straight away. They did the operation on the Saturday and she was home on Sunday afternoon. It's the first time I've been inside an Australian hospital for many years and the facilities were superb - very clean and modern, and everything ran like clockwork. In my mind it looked more like a private hospital than a government one.

One gripe we have in common is that they didn't prescribe her any painkillers, and as soon as my wife started moving around she was clearly in a lot of discomfort. The nurse on duty said they weren't able to prescribe any and to take a combination of paracetamol and ibuprofen, which certainly raised my eyebrows given that my poor wife had just had a lump the size of a golf ball removed from her nether regions. I wasn't having any of that and told her that "pain is what the patient says it is", according to one of my closest friends who is a consultant. With it being Sunday we had to wait a while to see a doctor, who prescribed oxycodone, which got her through the first few days. I'm guessing there's some reluctance when it comes to prescribing controlled drugs these days, with so many people overdosing and becoming dependent.

I think most people judge health care systems based on their own personal experience, or the experiences of family and friends. It doesn't create a very clear picture because facilities and services vary so widely, even within regions of the same country. My mother needed to rely on the NHS in the months before the end of her life, and it didn't let her down. She received excellent treatment and care on a number of occasions. However, I recall at the time (about five years ago) that the system seemed under a lot more pressure than I'd ever seen it previously.

On your other point, I've lived here over 25 years on and off and I've never paid to see a doctor. I've always found it bizarre that you had to pay at one doctors, but if you crossed the street the one on the other side is 100% bulk-billed. You'd think everyone would just go to the free ones, wouldn't you - but they don't. I appreciate that some people have complex medical histories so they would want to stay with the same doctor, but then I'm happy to see any old quack. I don't care what colour their skin is either, which still seems to be a problem for some Australians.

[Marisawright]

5 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

Have you forgotten about National Insurance? People contribute all their working lives. 

They do, but remember that National Insurance has to be pay for  medical care, unemployment benefit, maternity leave AND the pension.  Though NI has gone up this year, I think, it's bleeding obvious that it's pathetically inadequate to cover all of those areas.    

When National Insurance was first conceived, most people died by 70, so the pension had to cover less than 5 years.   Medical care was much more basic (no open heart surgery, no MRI scans etc).  Now people can live for 20 years after pension age, and modern healthcare can treat a much wider range of serious illnesses (which makes it more expensive).  Successive governments have been too chicken to increase the NI contributions enough to keep pace, so they would go nowhere near covering that expenditure even if the fund was well managed (which it hasn't been, by all accounts).  However they've let the electorate go on thinking that's exactly what NI does.

The result is that a lot of people my age are up in arms about the pension age being increased, because "We paid for our pension and we're entitled to get that money back".  Well, no, you didn't pay for the pension or anything close to it.  You made a small contribution towards it, that's all.

How small was brought home to me when I decided to pay my missing years of NI contributions.    I paid about 6 years of missing contributions, and I'll get all that money back in only 3 years in increased pension payments. That's bonkers.

 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Marisawright

[Bulya]

1 hour ago, InnerVoice said:

Sorry to hear that when your wife got sick she had a bad experience in the Australian healthcare system. On the contrary, my wife needed an urgent operation last year and had a great experience. She saw her GP on the Friday, who gave her a referral letter, then I took her to A&E and she was admitted straight away. They did the operation on the Saturday and she was home on Sunday afternoon. It's the first time I've been inside an Australian hospital for many years and the facilities were superb - very clean and modern, and everything ran like clockwork. In my mind it looked more like a private hospital than a government one.

One gripe we have in common is that they didn't prescribe her any painkillers, and as soon as my wife started moving around she was clearly in a lot of discomfort. The nurse on duty said they weren't able to prescribe any and to take a combination of paracetamol and ibuprofen, which certainly raised my eyebrows given that my poor wife had just had a lump the size of a golf ball removed from her nether regions. I wasn't having any of that and told her that "pain is what the patient says it is", according to one of my closest friends who is a consultant. With it being Sunday we had to wait a while to see a doctor, who prescribed oxycodone, which got her through the first few days. I'm guessing there's some reluctance when it comes to prescribing controlled drugs these days, with so many people overdosing and becoming dependent.

I think most people judge health care systems based on their own personal experience, or the experiences of family and friends. It doesn't create a very clear picture because facilities and services vary so widely, even within regions of the same country. My mother needed to rely on the NHS in the months before the end of her life, and it didn't let her down. She received excellent treatment and care on a number of occasions. However, I recall at the time (about five years ago) that the system seemed under a lot more pressure than I'd ever seen it previously.

On your other point, I've lived here over 25 years on and off and I've never paid to see a doctor. I've always found it bizarre that you had to pay at one doctors, but if you crossed the street the one on the other side is 100% bulk-billed. You'd think everyone would just go to the free ones, wouldn't you - but they don't. I appreciate that some people have complex medical histories so they would want to stay with the same doctor, but then I'm happy to see any old quack. I don't care what colour their skin is either, which still seems to be a problem for some Australians.

On my regular 6 monthly visit to my nephrologist he noticed my PSA was higher.  Next visit 3 months instead of 6 and still high and he had me in front of an Associate Professor urologist in less than 24 hours!  Has a biopsy in 2 weeks.   Health system here leaves the NHS for dead, that’s why so many here are ex NHS. 

[Quoll]

2 hours ago, Bulya said:

On my regular 6 monthly visit to my nephrologist he noticed my PSA was higher.  Next visit 3 months instead of 6 and still high and he had me in front of an Associate Professor urologist in less than 24 hours!  Has a biopsy in 2 weeks.   Health system here leaves the NHS for dead, that’s why so many here are ex NHS. 

Gosh, and you're in Canberra too where the public waiting list for a colonoscopy is 18 months! My UK friend recently was whingeing that hers was 5 weeks. A few years ago the Canberra Times announced that the waiting time for a public specialist urologist was 5 years. They must've lifted their game since then.

[InnerVoice]

6 hours ago, Marisawright said:

They do, but remember that National Insurance has to be pay for  medical care, unemployment benefit, maternity leave AND the pension.  Though NI has gone up this year, I think, it's bleeding obvious that it's pathetically inadequate to cover all of those areas.    

When National Insurance was first conceived, most people died by 70, so the pension had to cover less than 5 years.   Medical care was much more basic (no open heart surgery, no MRI scans etc).  Now people can live for 20 years after pension age, and modern healthcare can treat a much wider range of serious illnesses (which makes it more expensive).  Successive governments have been too chicken to increase the NI contributions enough to keep pace, so they would go nowhere near covering that expenditure even if the fund was well managed (which it hasn't been, by all accounts).  However they've let the electorate go on thinking that's exactly what NI does.

The result is that a lot of people my age are up in arms about the pension age being increased, because "We paid for our pension and we're entitled to get that money back".  Well, no, you didn't pay for the pension or anything close to it.  You made a small contribution towards it, that's all.

How small was brought home to me when I decided to pay my missing years of NI contributions.    I paid about 6 years of missing contributions, and I'll get all that money back in only 3 years in increased pension payments. That's bonkers.

I wouldn't dispute that many will receive far more from the UK system in terms of benefits, healthcare and the state pension during the course of their lives than they will ever pay in, but conversely there are those who will never receive anything. One in five men (19%) die before they reach 65, so there's a fifth of the male population who will never draw a state pension for a start.

And whilst you can pay up your missing years for a meagre £800, if you're working in the UK you'll pay a lot more than that in NI contributions - £4,200 based on the current average salary of £35,000/year. And bear in mind that most people pay these contributions for up to 50 years, so what you contributed in 1973 should be worth a lot more in real terms in 2023 if successive governments has managed their finances properly. If they haven't, then you can't really throw it back at the populace for having unrealistic expectations.

Edited November 6, 2023 by InnerVoice

[Marisawright]

41 minutes ago, InnerVoice said:

if you're working in the UK you'll pay a lot more than that in NI contributions - £4,200 based on the current average salary of £35,000/year. And bear in mind that most people pay these contributions for up to 50 years, so what you contributed in 1973 should be worth a lot more in real terms in 2023 if successive governments has managed their finances properly. If they haven't, then you can't really throw it back at the populace for having unrealistic expectations.

I'm just looking at the value of my oh's superannuation.  He was in the public service at the beginning of his career, so had super from the age of about 20.

I'm pretty sure he has contributed more into his super than anyone would've contributed to NI contributions, and I think it's been well-invested.  Yet if his super had been his  ONLY source of all his healthcare throughout his adult life plus his pension till he dies, I don't think it would be enough.  By what magic would NI contributions do better?  And remember, it pays for unemployment benefit as well.

Sure, some people die early, but likewise some people live till 100, or have huge medical bills for a large chunk of their lives.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Marisawright

[Bulya]

4 hours ago, Quoll said:

Gosh, and you're in Canberra too where the public waiting list for a colonoscopy is 18 months! My UK friend recently was whingeing that hers was 5 weeks. A few years ago the Canberra Times announced that the waiting time for a public specialist urologist was 5 years. They must've lifted their game since then.

Nephrologist (Gavin Carney) rang the urologist (A/P Hodo Haxhimolla) whilst I was there and straight in the next day.  You should know better than to believe anything the CT says.  Oh and I’ve had a colonoscopy too (Graham Magarry) and it was a 5 week wait.  

[Blue Manna]

14 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

Oh, you mean the entire British electorate? How could they be so ignorant to think that the government would actually spend their NICs on what they are supposed to.

Is this a serious question?

They elected Boris Johnson.

Does that answer your question?

[Parley]

People have no idea how this actually works.

The Ni contributions received from all workers this year need to cover the pension payments for all those receiving pensions this year.

So to make it simple if you have a million workers and 100,000 pensioners the NI contributions made by the million workers only need to be large enough to pay for the 100,000 pensioners claiming this year. That is how the system has always worked.

You are not contributing the full amount to cover your own pension as many incorrectly assume. Just contributing to a pool of money to support the number of pensioners claiming.

[FirstWorldProblems]

51 minutes ago, Parley said:

People have no idea how this actually works.

The Ni contributions received from all workers this year need to cover the pension payments for all those receiving pensions this year.

So to make it simple if you have a million workers and 100,000 pensioners the NI contributions made by the million workers only need to be large enough to pay for the 100,000 pensioners claiming this year. That is how the system has always worked.

You are not contributing the full amount to cover your own pension as many incorrectly assume. Just contributing to a pool of money to support the number of pensioners claiming.

One minor correction.  Pensions are funded by NI and general taxation and not NI alone. 
 

But the essence of your post is quite correct - a persons NI contributions are not being invested somewhere in an effort for the fund to grow by the time that person retires. 

[Parley]

It is a bit like a ponzi scheme.

[Quoll]

19 hours ago, Bulya said:

Nephrologist (Gavin Carney) rang the urologist (A/P Hodo Haxhimolla) whilst I was there and straight in the next day.  You should know better than to believe anything the CT says.  Oh and I’ve had a colonoscopy too (Graham Magarry) and it was a 5 week wait.  

My gastroenterologist told me the wait times for public patients when I saw her privately a couple of months ago (she's in public the rest of the time) - all done and dusted 2 weeks, privately. Most people I know go private except for a few elderly friends who've waited years for their hips and knees to be done and continue to wait. My GP expects people to go to private specialists but she doesn't bulk bill so her client group is probably more likely to pay. 

[Bulya]

3 hours ago, Quoll said:

My gastroenterologist told me the wait times for public patients when I saw her privately a couple of months ago (she's in public the rest of the time) - all done and dusted 2 weeks, privately. Most people I know go private except for a few elderly friends who've waited years for their hips and knees to be done and continue to wait. My GP expects people to go to private specialists but she doesn't bulk bill so her client group is probably more likely to pay. 

TKR’s both done by Dr. Michael Gross at Calvary, same for MUA on each.  Private ward w/TV etc.  ACT Health gave me a set of walking sticks to keep and non-slip socks.  Exemplary care and no fees.   No complaints from me..

[Cheery Thistle]

23 hours ago, Blue Manna said:

Is this a serious question?

They elected Boris Johnson.

Does that answer your question?

They didn’t. The public doesn’t elect the prime minister! 

[Marisawright]

23 hours ago, FirstWorldProblems said:

One minor correction.  Pensions are funded by NI and general taxation and not NI alone. 
 

But the essence of your post is quite correct - a persons NI contributions are not being invested somewhere in an effort for the fund to grow by the time that person retires. 

...and the essence of my post was that many Brits believe that's exactly how it works (just look at all the furore about the pension age going up, mostly along the lines of "I've paid into NI all my life so I'm entitled to get my money's worth").

Edited November 7, 2023 by Marisawright

[Blue Manna]

18 hours ago, Cheery Thistle said:

They didn’t. The public doesn’t elect the prime minister! 

They elected a government led by Boris Johnson. Stop being pedantic.

[BendigoBoy]

20 minutes ago, Blue Manna said:

They elected a government led by Boris Johnson. Stop being pedantic.

Now, play fair.  The rules officially say that constituents vote for their MP: by that token, it shouldn't even *really* be about the party, but rather your MP's representation of your interests in the Commons.

I'm all for just sitting back and watching the UK continue to fade away into insignificance and oblivion through the sheer stupidity of the populist twonks who read the Daily Mail, but let's at least get the technicalities of how the electoral process is intended to run correct, shall we?

[InnerVoice]

On 07/11/2023 at 09:02, FirstWorldProblems said:

One minor correction.  Pensions are funded by NI and general taxation and not NI alone. 

But the essence of your post is quite correct - a persons NI contributions are not being invested somewhere in an effort for the fund to grow by the time that person retires. 

 

4 hours ago, Marisawright said:

...and the essence of my post was that many Brits believe that's exactly how it works (just look at all the furore about the pension age going up, mostly along the lines of "I've paid into NI all my life so I'm entitled to get my money's worth").

Honestly, I don't think most Brits give a hoot how the state pension is calculated or funded, just as long as they receive it when they're entitled to it.

I don't think anyone with even the most rudimentary grasp of finances believes that the modest amount they'll receive from a full UK state pension will fund their retirement. I think for a while you might just about have been able to exist on it, but I doubt you'd even manage that these days given the current cost of utilities etc. However, the state pension is a guaranteed income that factors into most people's retirement plans, and it makes a significant difference as to when a person can afford to stop working.

During the course of my lifetime the age at which I can claim the UK state pension has risen from 65 to 67, but given that the average life expectancy has increased by at least 5 years since I was born I still think I'm on a winner.

[InnerVoice]

2 hours ago, BendigoBoy said:

Now, play fair.  The rules officially say that constituents vote for their MP: by that token, it shouldn't even *really* be about the party, but rather your MP's representation of your interests in the Commons.

I'm all for just sitting back and watching the UK continue to fade away into insignificance and oblivion through the sheer stupidity of the populist twonks who read the Daily Mail, but let's at least get the technicalities of how the electoral process is intended to run correct, shall we?

To be fair, I recall plenty of 'twonks' at the opposite end of the political spectrum who've played their part in ruining the country over the years.

In an ideal world we'd vote for MPs based on them representing our interests and their party's policies, but UK elections have become more like America in recent years - a popularity contest between the leaders. The Conservatives won the last election by default. I think people became frustrated by how the opposition parties had continually blocked the Brexit bill, and how much time that was wasting in the Commons. Hardly anything else had been discussed for 3 years. No one trusted Corbyn either because he represented Old Labour in most people's eyes, and a resurgence of the looney left - not to mention his former connections with various terrorist organisations.

Edited November 8, 2023 by InnerVoice