As many other people have said, No, there are no out of pocket expenses whilst you are being treated.

There is a small sidebar here: My wife is bedridden with a whole slew of conditions. The local government (County Council), which is NOT the NHS, offered us carers (very basic nursing), a team of 2 who would come in 4 times per day, to help with her care, such as washing her, changing pads, changing bedding etc. We took them up on their offer, but during the height of the COVID pandemic we chose to stop them and I took over the role.

I can’t remember the exact figures, but I think it was that if we had less than £16,000 in savings then all services were free; If we had between £16,000 and 20,000 we would pay a partial rate and if we had more than 20k we would have paid full cost. We paid for some time, but as our funds were depleted we got the rest free.

As I am now my wife’s full time and only carer, the County Council have given me a personal assistant, for 3 hours per week, which I can use for any purpose I need. I choose when they work and I can “bank” hours if I’d like them to stay for a longer time – they will do housework if I need, or shopping or if I need to be out for a considerable time, they will stay with my wife make her drinks and food and keep her company. This is paid for by the council not by me.

The difference is, as I said, carers were supplied by the County Council, not the NHS. If my wife’s conditions had required regular medical attention from the NHS, there would have been no cost at any point.

WARNING: Might be too graphic reading for some – real name and real location is withheld, the lawsuit is still ongoing. The Patient is deceased.

Shelley, was born a normal bouncy baby, then when her family had to travel to another country (Mars), apparently the water system wasn’t to its fullest, and Shelley was constantly getting sick. Since the move was temporary. Shelley and her family returned back to this country of Earth.

Shelley was just a little over one years old, and suddenly she lapsed into a “strange behavior” which she then went all the way up to a top tier Neurology Hospital, a Level 5 (RUSH ← Real Name). She was diagnosed as having Rett’s. Then another Doctor came in and said “she didn’t have Rett’s, she has Lennox-Gastaut (syndrome – aka LGS).”

Over the years they learned she wasn’t a LGS, and the frequent VEEG (Video Electroencephalogram) was revealing. Then the top tier Neuro-Surgeon came to evaluate this young girl (she was now 22 years of age – on Disability and her parents paid for her small apartment, she had a trained dog (known as Seizure Response Dog or “Epileptic Dog” (not a good name for it).

The Surgeon found the issue, and speaking with her (22 years old) along with her family, about going into a “Test” surgery. As Sarah really wanted to stop seizing so much, her quality of life wasn’t very good. They decided to go for it.

Almost “instantly” it worked – she was about 75% better but still had problems, the Surgeon stated “I cannot go to that troubled area because it was just far too risky.” However, he stressed that she was 75% better and as much as he wanted to assure her “she will never be 100% normal.”

Then the VNS came to being, at this time, Shelly a married woman, had 2 children who were completely normal (even though the Doctors advised her not to get pregnant as they didn’t know if her situation was a Mitochondrial / Genetic issue) – were grown and married with healthy children.

Her husband retired and they were temporarily renting in the area, to find a retirement home, to get away from the harsh cold winters.

Shelley was in the process of having her records transferred to this local Hospital that was going up to Level 4 (not a Level 5). The Hospital had her to see a young Epileptologist (a doctor that specializes in Epilepsy); and after three consultations, that young Epileptologist told her she needed to see a Psychiatrist and she didn’t have Epilepsy, she had PNES (Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizure, a condition where seizure-like episodes are caused by psychological distress, not abnormal brain activity, and are often misdiagnosed as epilepsy) and didn’t believe both of them that she was a long term patient of Rush (Level 5 Neurology) and then immediately discontinued her medications! (She was on it, long term, and would be on it for the rest of her life.)

The husband blew up at the Doctor and the Doctor then banished them. A few days later, Shelley lapsed into multiple Tonic Clonic seizures (aka Grand Mal) and the Paramedics were going to take her to that hospital but found out “she was banned” so they had to air-flight her to a Level 5 in another area nearby!

She did not make it, the removal of her medications by a low-ranking Epileptologist who deemed himself “exalted one” caused the death of his wife. The Epileptologist was bought for questioning, and he rambled on and on about this patient, claimed that she was treated, had surgery, and all, at the famous Rush Hospital.

The Board did proceed to contact Rush Hospital, and they confirmed, she was a long time patient, had endured two brain surgeries, and per the record, it shows they were in the process of moving to that State to retire, and both had indicated they would alert the hospital for the record transfers.

The Board then asked that Level 4 hospital, why they didn’t ask for the records. The personnel said “We did sir, but the Doctor didn’t sign it and he said that they didn’t need it. He knew when a patient was lying and faking it.”

Because of that → That Epileptologist is no longer a level 4/5 Doctor, he’s been lowered to the lowest of all lows in Neurology – “basic” – which means he can no longer go to the high level and he would be required to send the patient to the specialist in that level; he can no longer prescribe specific drugs. (Today, at this time, I’ve learned that Doctor is out of the Hospital system personnel altogether, he’s independent and IS NOT doing well at all – it’s only a matter of time before he’s out of employment, He’s got a very tarnished image and reputation and has been rocking the boat, it’s only a matter of time before he’s completely shipwrecked.)

Her husband had filed a lawsuit – it’s still ongoing, even though his wife had passed away 6 years ago.

Let me tell you a little story about my mother in-law.

She was born in St. Louis Missouri which makes her an American citizen. She’s a super sweet lady who I’m happy to call my mother in-law. She was an elementary school teacher for many years, the hours sucked and so did the pay but she loved the kids, and it was her passion to teach. She was that teacher who gave out snacks, cookies, and candy to her student during movie days. Prior to the ACAs passage she was denied medical care by the health insurance company for a very serious issue because of a bullshit reason.

She started feeling a lot of pain, and it was agony to hear her tell it which I don’t doubt since she’s not a drama queen, during Christmas break one year and went to see her GP. After an MRI her GP sent her straight to the nearest hospital via ambulance for emergency surgery. She’d developed an Aortic Abdominal Aneurysm. This is a very serious and potentially life threatening condition where there’s a bulge in the aorta and it must be taken care of immediately or it’s going to from bad to worse. Because it was an emergency situation the doctors didn’t do any pre-authorization from her insurance company and just took care of it. They then tried to bill her insurance which was immediately denied. The reason why they denied it was that she was sent to the nearest hospital, which was out of network, rather than the in network hospital across town which would’ve taken a lot longer to get to and possibly killed her if the AAA had ruptured during transportation. The bill was astronomical, almost a million dollars for everything all together, and she was on her own paying for it on a $34,000 a year salary.

She got very lucky in the long run however. Her union representative told her about an arbitration clause in the insurance paperwork and she decided to take advantage of it. The arbiter found in her favor, which is a rarity because most arbiters back the insurance company over the patient in these cases, because she didn’t make the choices of where to go and the absolute need for it to be taken care of immediately based on the evidence her GP and surgeon presented.

If she hadn’t gotten the surgery she’d never have met her husband, had her daughter, or become my mother in-law. I’m grateful she did because I really couldn’t imagine life without her and her daughter.

In a universal healthcare system this bullshit wouldn’t happen because there’s no network to speak of. It’s just doctors and patients who need care. There’s no bullshit paperwork for different companies billing for different things. That’s one of the biggest things that irks me about people like you who want to keep healthcare as a private industry rather than a universal right. You believe that capitalism is the answer to a problem of its own creation. It’s not. It just makes life more difficult for everyone and has cost people their lives because of the expense. I know of no one in a universal healthcare covered nation that would ever want the American system. They don’t want their care rationed and denied like insurance companies do. If America is the leader of the free world than maybe, just maybe, we should accept that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

I have lived under both universal health care and the US approach, although perhaps I was spoiled, as I lived under the system that the WHO once rated as the absolute best in the world. (The US is 37th, by the way.)

I can show from my paystubs in both countries that the extra “taxes” [sic — in the country where I lived, health insurance was paid through an itemized deduction from my salary plus a contribution from my employer, just like it is done in the US] are less than the additional cost of healthcare premiums in the US at comparable income levels, and that doesn’t even begin to account for copays and deductibles.

I don’t know what inconveniences the OP is referring to, as we didn’t experience any when we lived overseas. We never had to check an insurance company website before seeking treatment as we have to do in the US. We never had to convince a faceless insurance company bureaucrat of the medical necessity of a doctor visit, test, prescription, or procedure, as we have had to do in the US. We never experienced any waiting times for any of the above as we have had in the US. We never had to spend countless hours on the phone with billing services and insurance claims departments attempting to get payment straightened out for medical actions that were approved as we have had to do in the US. And you can be sure that if there were any such inconveniences in the country where I lived, it would have been public knowledge.

Now there is an unexpected and counterintuitive side effect of having such good healthcare, and that it that people live much longer in good health than they used to (and fully 4 years longer than in the US according to the latest data), which means that the healthcare system is now being stretched by demographic pressures. But that’s kind of a nice problem to have if you think about it with any empathy at all.

So yes, it is absolutely worth it.

I’m a software engineer and I used to work in the game industry: I always lose my job suddenly. Nearly every game studio I worked for ending up laying me off. Suddenly.

I only got advance notice and severance at two. I’ll skip those.

Almost every studio was facing hard times: their games bombed, they didn’t get any new contracts, or the parent company just up and decided not to make games anymore. So they usually gathered us in a conference room and said, “We have to let you go. Immediately. Sorry.”

Usually everyone else at the company got let go too. I wasn’t singled out; the whole studio was shutting down. So without warning, I lost my job and got absolutely zero severance. Neither did anyone else, except maybe the owners. Jerks.

These guys almost laid me off. They would have soon if I had stuck around much longer. (image credit)

How did we survive?

Well, I was married with two kids, but we were a single-income household. My wife loved working, but thought being a stay-at-home mom was more important. So of course I immediately started looking for new gigs immediately. Earnestly. It was like having a tedious, terrifying, fulltime job.

• I got unemployment. It wasn’t much, especially since we had to pay for COBRA.* But it was better than nothing.
• We racked up a lot of credit card debt. We had several credit cards, and we used those to get by while I looked for work.
• We used what little savings we had. And it was little. We were a single-income household, so usually my paycheck was spent as soon as we got it.
• We asked for leniency from one lender. They granted it. Nice lender.

Eventually I always got another gig, though once it took six months.

It took several years to finally pay off our credit cards, but they’ve been paid off for over a decade now. And I don’t work in the game industry anymore either.

My wife recently returned to the U.K. from Taiwan where she picked up a bug. By the time she got home she was very I’ll so I took her to the A&E. because of the urgency of her case she was rushed to intensive care and stayed there for a week before being moved onto a ward. During her time on IC she had blood tests three times a day. They found out that she had a serious kidney infection. She was put on an antibiotic drip as well as vitamin drops.

Once she was moved to a ward tje bloods were done daily but she still had the drips.

Total cost of this was one box of chocolates for the wonderful nurses.

Jealous? Let me think about that.

Hi, Barbara Stary. Thanks for the interesting question.

Anyone who follows me on Quora knows that I don’t eat cheese—or other dairy products—so this means I don’t eat pizza. I guess I would be okay with eating a cheese-less pizza, but I haven’t come across those yet.

But I work in a game development company. The kind where almost everyone comes to work in casual clothing, like in jeans and hoodies and sneakers, even sweat pants, and unlike me, most of my colleagues eat cheese. Not all of them are in love with cheese, but unlike me, those who aren’t exactly cheese lovers have no issues with eating the occasional pizza. While I don’t think pizza ranks in the top 5, I would say that it might be somewhere in the Top 10 when it comes to what we might order for our fortnightnightly/monthly/quarterly in-office team dinners or if we go out as a group for dinner after work.

If it’s dinner at the office, no worries, my HR colleague will always ensure there’s a dinner option that’s not cheese (usually one of the various Chinese cuisines). But if we go out for dinner after work, it’s more impromptu, and the size and composition of the group can differ. On the rare occasion that they’ve decided to head to a pizza place, sometimes I’ll tag along as well, as those pizza places often have some other non-pizza, non-cheese, dish that I can order.

I’m not sure what you mean by “pizza pie”, though. From my handful of years Stateside, I came to learn about Chicago deep-dish pizza, which is pizza with a higher edge, like a couple of centimeters more, which makes it even thicker, with more stuffing and loads more cheese. Is that what “pizza pie” refers to?

I mean, there’s Pizza Hut in China, and the last time I read a report, it mentioned there being nearly 3,500 Pizza Hut restaurants in the country. So, that’s a lot of pizza right there.

But if you’re wondering whether there’s something similar to a Chicago deep-dish pizza, there’s a place here in Chengdu that serves them.

The store is called Mmunch, 漫起·厚披萨 (màn qǐ·hòu pīsà) [Munchy Thick Pizza] located in 太古里 (tàigǔ lǐ) [Taikoo Li].

I believe this is the ONLY pizza place in Chengdu that serves deep-dish pizza.

The thickness of their deep-dish pizza is said to be 4 cm.
And on their menu, they state that each deep-dish pizza is meant for 2–3 people.

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This is their Hot Pot Deep-Dish Pizza (spicy):

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This is their Durian Deep-Dish Pizza:

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This is their Chicago Grand Slam Deep-Dish Pizza:

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This is the exterior of the restaurant:

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Conclusion:

There are many other pizza places as well, but like I said above, if you’re looking specifically for deep-dish pizza, this is probably the only place in Chengdu that serves it.

Hope this answer helps with your question, Barbara Stary!
Have a lovely, productive week ahead ^^ !

I’m in my mid 50s. I was born with hip dysplasia. I’m deaf. My eyesight is nothing to write home about. After a lifetime of running, pounding the pavements for hours every day, I have arthritis in my hands, shoulders, hips and knees. I’ve given birth 5 times. I’ve had various surgeries for things like tumour removal, appendicitis and resetting bones. I’ve had blood clots, stomach ulcers and a horrible condition called “erosive duodenitis”.

Through all these treatments, and probably a whole load more that I have forgotten or am too embarrassed to share here, I HAVE NOT PAID A SINGLE PENNY FOR HEALTHCARE.

I have state of the art Bluetooth hearing aids. I have specs which have some kind of fancy high-faluting lenses to deal with my cataracts. I receive my prescription medication free of charge (delivered to my door). There are 3 A&E departments within 15 minutes drive of my front door – in an emergency I get myself there and the NHS does the rest.

People complain about the NHS, and there’s no doubt that it needs to receive increased funding from the government, but it is the jewel in the crown. The NHS is the pride of our nation. They keep us going. The staff are bloody marvellous. I wouldn’t switch to a US style privatised healthcare system for all the tea in China.

Let’s see

China exports roughly around 12.50% of its total exports to the US markets

Of this nearly 7.50% consist of finished products owned in full or in part by American companies and brands

Brands like Bosch and many others design their tools in US but have them made in China and then slapped with a label of their own

American companies make upto 80% – 200% markup on these made in China products

So if these exports are restricted, it will cost China jobs and business losses but significantly more loss to the US in terms of hitting small businesses and retail customers and consumption

However US markets have too much reliance on Chinese Goods with 80% of them having NO OTHER SOURCE

• Pharma APIs for Patent Drugs (86%)
• Chips (>= 100 nm) (78%)
• Electronic Circuits (77%)
• Toys (76%)
• Low Cost Goods (58%)
• Consumer Electronics (83% – Made in China, 37% – Chinese Brands)
• Low cost machinery (49%)
• Industrial Machinery (61%)
• Drone parts (88%)
• Cranes (Small, Industrial) (63%)
• EV Batteries (48%)
• Smartphone Accessories (93%)
• Low Cost Medical Equipment (35%)
• Industrial Chemicals (72%)
• Refined Rare Earth Blocks (91%) – Banned/Restricted
• Aerospace Parts (31%)
• Airline Parts (41%)
• Agricultural Machinery Parts for Assembly (64%)
• Smartphones (71%)
• Refined Lithium & Graphite (74%)

Basically even Made in US products are assembled with Chinese machinery and Chinese parts

Let’s see the second biggest suppliers for each

• Pharma APIs for Patent Drugs – Switzerland (8.7%)
• Chips (>= 100 nm) – Taiwan (13%)
• Electronic Circuits – Taiwan (14%)
• Toys – Vietnam (11%)
• Low Cost Goods – Vietnam (24%)
• Consumer Electronics – India (10.8%)
• Low cost machinery – India (18%)
• Industrial Machinery – Mexico (23%)
• Drone parts – France (8%)
• Cranes (Small, Industrial) – Japan (17%)
• EV Batteries – South Korea (25%)
• Smartphone Accessories – Vietnam (4%)
• Low Cost Medical Equipment – Vietnam (30%)
• Industrial Chemicals – Bangladesh (21%)
• Refined Rare Earth Blocks – Canada (4%)
• Aerospace Parts – Canada (22%) [Russian Exports have formally been cut off ]
• Airline Parts- Germany (21%)
• Agricultural Machinery Parts for Assembly – Mexico (26%)
• Smartphones – India (12%)
• Refined Lithium and Graphite – Canada & Australia (8% each)

Of these many suppliers in Mexico and Vietnam are Chinese

So practically there is NO AREA where any import substitution is possible in the near future or even in the next 10 years if you start investing heavily into manufacturing which nobody will knowing Trump is mercurial as hell and he has only 4 years maximum

Remember Russia?

Russia would have folded completely had it not been for China and it’s limitless Goods and import substitution

China took on all of Europe and US and their entire supply chain and kept the Russian economy ticking very comfortably

How the Americans would handle import substitution is a huge question mark?

Under a Rational Sane President, this would be a HUGE CHALLENGE

Under an 80 year old megalomaniac – it is an Impossibility

China will have temporary pain but US will have a permanent blow which would mark another step to the decline and the end