[HNdev1995]

My parents live in the UK which has free healthcare. The situation is dire. The waitlist for chronic pain surgeries are 3-4 years long. Lots of people, including my parents, have resorted to flying out to other cheaper countries to get treatment.

[jamil7]

Because politicians have made it their mission to chip away at the NHS over decades. This doesn’t say anything about the efficacy of statutory healthcare.

[ashdksnndck]

But it’s quite relevant to the question of whether you can just assume that some country will foot the bill for your health care needs at old age, and therefore you don’t need to worry about health expenses if you retire early. Rising costs of health care systems are a serious problem in most developed countries. “Eh, I’ll just move to Europe in old age” is not really a comprehensive plan to ensure you get good healthcare far in the future.

[eastbound]

It does. In every public-healthcare country, this happens. Because incentives are stacked against delivering to the patient and for increasing spendings. It’s the tragedy of the commons.

[KaiserPro]

> The waitlist for chronic pain surgeries are 3-4 years long

The NHS has _many_ problems, don't get me wrong. But 3-4 years for "chronic pain surgery" isnt one of them. There are huge wait times, but 3-4 years is not representative. (Hip replacement times are ~4 months, much higher than it used to be)

Would I fly out to turkey to get a knee done? fuck no, half the problem is physio. Can you fly out and do it? you sure can.

This kind of doomerism is going to lead to farage getting his way and replacing universal healthcare for shitty half arsed insurance.

[igor47]

Is chronic pain an outlier here, or representative of wider trends? My uninformed prior is that surgery is not a good approach for chronic pain, and that the NHS is more likely to cover surgeries with a more clear-cut cost/benefit ratio

[ljf]

For things like hip replacements, cancer treatment and other physical ailments the NHS is pretty awesome. Some stuff it fails at I am sure, but as you say that is in part down to the way that it prioritises care based on results.

[dom96]

Private healthcare is still much cheaper in the UK, so you're still better off retiring there. Might not always be the case of course, but I would bet the situation will continue to be better than in the US.