PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE....

[CailinDeas]

I'm thinking about cancelling mine. How many of you have private health insurance? Is it necessary in your opinion?

[Sqad]

No it isn't necessary.

My advice: if you can afford private insurance, then take it.

[woofgang]

I have private health insurance and while I can afford it I will keep it. I am a retired NHS employee.

[shaneystar2]

We used to have it .Perk of my husbands job .We kept it up when he retired .
Over many years we used it twice .As we got older the premiums went upand up .On a fixed income that was a lot of money every month .When a push came to a shove and my husband was diagnosed with cancer they let us down terribly .
We cancelled it . He got excellent treatment with the NHS .

[woofgang]

Some of the treatment my DH got with the nhs was pantsier than five times worn underpants and the local private setup and Bupa were wonderful...I guess it depends on where you live.

[Hymie]

It is extremely necessary for the insurance company (not you).

[ethandron]

We used to have it but when we both took early retirement we decided to throw ourselves on the mercy of the NHS and so far it's not disappointed us.
If we were extremely rich we'd have private everything, but as we're not, we don't.

[boxtops]

I used to have it, and we used it when I had a major op 20 years ago - but we couldn't afford to keep up the payments so we cancelled it. OH had a private op a few years back and the private hospital had their own reasonable credit card, so we used that to pay. If the need for healthcare is urgent, you still can't beat the NHS for acute care.

[woofgang]

Our local acute hospital is filthy and I wouldn't send someone else's plastic goldfish there. My husband nearly died in their a and e because the receptionists didn't believe how Ill he was, because i had driven him in instead of getting an ambulance, wouldn't get his notes and refused to talk to his consultant. In the end, the consultant phoned one of the duty doctors on his mobile. Like the curates egg, parts of nhs acute care are excellent but by no means all.