China - Corona Virus: : Why China Sticks With Costly Lockdowns and 'Zero COVID' - by John Feng

As the occupants of a high-rise apartment block in western Shanghai sang from their windows in the third week of China's harshest COVID lockdown since the beginning of the pandemic, a small drone carrying a loudspeaker sought to quell their benign protest with a dystopian message: "Dear residents ... Please strictly comply with the municipal government's epidemic prevention regulations. Control your soul's desire for freedom and refrain from opening your windows to sing. This behavior carries a risk of transmission."

Like many countries in the West, the United States has done away with most rules surrounding public health. Some argue the measures were never restrictive enough to be begin with. America's nearly 1 million COVID-19 deaths are now the go-to gibe in Beijing whenever Washington mentions the condition of human rights in China, where the death toll remains at a little more than 4,600.

With nearly 90 percent of China's population fully vaccinated, many observers outside the country—and some within—are wondering why policymakers still refuse to abandon their "zero-COVID" approach, despite fears that the strategy is becoming untenable.

Read more at: Why China Sticks With Costly Lockdowns and 'Zero COVID'

US Healthcare Sucks If you have limited funds: Covid Killed His Father. Then Came $1 Million in Medical Bills - by Sarah Kliff -

One coronavirus survivor manages her medical bills in color-coded folders: green, red and tan for different types of documents. A man whose father died of the virus last fall uses an Excel spreadsheet to organize the outstanding debts. It has 457 rows, one for each of his father’s bills, totaling over $1 million.

These are people who are facing the financial version of long-haul Covid: They’ve found their lives and finances upended by medical bills resulting from a bout with the virus.

Their desks and coffee tables have stacks of billing documents. They are fluent in the jargon of coronavirus medical coding, after hundreds of hours of phone calls discussing the charges with hospitals, doctors and insurers.

“People think there is some relief program for medical bills for coronavirus patients,” said Jennifer Miller, a psychologist near Milwaukee who is working with a lawyer to challenge thousands in outstanding debt from two emergency room visits last year. “It just doesn’t exist.”

Read more at: Covid Killed His Father. Then Came $1 Million in Medical Bills. - The New York Times

The Netherlands : Passengers out of Schiphol airport need to produce a useless certificate costing € 180 they have been tested Coronavirus negative

Need to travel somewhere by plane? On top of your ticket cost, also count on dishing out an additional € 180.00, to do a coronavirus test at a KLM approved Healthcare Services Center.

Inquiries, however, made with Government authorities (RIVM) show it is completely pointless to undergo a corona test if you have no symptoms. There is no proven validity to be linked to the result of these tests, because the results can vary from day to day.

The GGD -"Dutch Government municipal health organisation for preventive healthcare", will perform this Coronavirus test for free at local municipality health centers in the Netherlands,in case a local resident believes he or she has the symptoms of the virus. Unfortunately this free test is not considered acceptable by the KLM ticketing services at Schiphol.

Hopefully the government authorities will be looking at this absurd procedure, which looks more like a money making scam by the KLM Schiphol authorities.

Almere-Digest

The Netherlands: How the Netherlands got universal health insurance with a private market - "but polls show citizens still find healthcare too costly for the average citizen"

Critics argue that the Netherlands made a mistake in handing over so much of its health care to the private market. Dutch patients face higher financial barriers to care than their peers in more socialized systems, like Germany, Britain, Spain, and spending has accelerated in recent years, trends the critics blame on the privatized market.

The average cost to a Dutch citizen for health insurance is about 1,400 euros, or $1,615, annually. People with lower incomes get additional government assistance to reduce their payments. The government also collects contributions from employers to help fund the insurance scheme and covers the cost for children; revenues are spread among the insurers based on the health status of their customers. Public financing covers about 75 percent of the system’s costs; the insurers have also generally operated as nonprofits.

The benefits are designed to encourage cost-efficient use of medical care by patients. Dutch patients can visit a primary care doctor for free. For a visit to the hospital, they will need to pay toward their deductible. The annual deductible is today capped at €385 ($429), although people can choose to pay a lower monthly premium in exchange for a higher deductible — up to €885 ($980).

That is still well below the typical deductible in America (more than $1,600 on average for workers on their employer’s plan, and many people have a higher deductible than that).

The system has more or less delivered universal coverage. More than 99 percent of Dutch people have insurance; people with conscientious objections are exempted from the mandate to buy insurance.

The system is designed to funnel people with minor problems to a general practitioner to free up the ER for more emergencies. But Dutch patients weren’t thrilled with the idea of the co-ops when they first started nearly 20 years ago, wary about seeing somebody other than their normal physician. 

 Read more at: How the Netherlands got universal health insurance with a private market - Vox

Britain: Inside Boris Johnson's £20,000-a-week Caribbean Christmas getaway

Pictures have emerged of the luxury Caribbean villa where Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds will see in the New Year. The pair will have a pick of three swimming pools, six bedrooms and stunning views in every direction at the £20,000-a-week hideaway. The Oceanus villa on the island of Mustique comes with a dedicated butler, housekeeper, chef and gardener. They arrived today after stopping off in St Lucia where he was congratulated on his election victory by the country’s prime minister, Alan Chastanet. But he is expected to leave all formal prime ministerial work at the door to spend time with Ms Symonds, 31.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/27/inside-boris-johnsons-20000-week-caribbean-christmas-getaway-11966178/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Pictures have emerged of the luxury Caribbean villa where Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds will see in the New Year. The pair will have a pick of three swimming pools, six bedrooms and stunning views in every direction at the £20,000-a-week hideaway. The Oceanus villa on the island of Mustique comes with a dedicated butler, housekeeper, chef and gardener. They arrived today after stopping off in St Lucia where he was congratulated on his election victory by the country’s prime minister, Alan Chastanet. But he is expected to leave all formal prime ministerial work at the door to spend time with Ms Symonds, 31.

Read more: https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/27/inside-boris-johnsons-20000-week-caribbean-christmas-getaway-11966178/?ito=cbshare
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MetroUK | Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MetroUK/

Carrie Symonds and Boris Johnson

Pictures have emerged of the luxury Caribbean villa where Boris Johnson (55) and his 31 year old girlfriend Carrie Symonds will see in the New Year.

The pair will have a pick of three swimming pools, six bedrooms and stunning views in every direction at the £20,000-a-week hideaway.

The Oceanus villa on the island of Mustique comes with a dedicated butler, housekeeper, chef and gardener.

They arrived today after stopping off in St Lucia where he was congratulated on his election victory by the country’s prime minister, Alan Chastanet. But he is expected to leave all formal prime ministerial work at the door to spend time with Ms Symonds,

Read more at: Inside Boris Johnson's £20,000-a-week Caribbean Christmas getaway | Metro News

The Netherlands: the Dutch Healthcare system is among the most costly in Europe - by RM

Dutch citizens did not get a good deal under the current Dutch health insurance law.

It has become an extremely expensive business to get health Insurance in the Netherlands.

Especially if you add up all nthe costs.

First of all there is the obligatory deductible of Euro 385, then the monthly premium, which  on average is around Euro 250 per month.

That makes a total "out of pocket expense" of Euro 3,385 per year, and even than you are not there yet.

There are also a variety of other provisions, whereby certain costs incurred for pharmaceuticals, and medical services, are not reimbursed.

Not only is Dutch healthcare  too costly for the average citizen, it also is a cash machine for Dutch Insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry.

Healthcare Insurance services and costs should also be uniformly regulated throughout the EU, which is not the case right now.

It is high time that the "political establishment" and the voters start paying more attention to the fact that this issue needs to get fixed without delay.

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USA: A history of why the US is the only rich country without universal health care - by Annalisa Merelli

So why does the US, the only industrialized nation without universal health coverage, also have not only the highest health-care spending in the world—both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP—but also one of the highest levels of government spending on health care per person? And how did it come to be this way?

The answer is that the lack of universal coverage and high costs are intimately linked—both economically and historically.

Single-payer health-care (in which the government pays for universal coverage, typically through taxes) helps keep costs down for two reasons: It means that the government can regulate and negotiate the price of drugs and medical services, and it eliminates the need for a vast private health-insurance bureaucracy.

Currently, the US spends two to three times as much per capita on health care as most industrialized countries.

Click heren to read the complete report : Health care in the US: Why universal health care never happened — Quartz