As the health care debate grows ever more heated and vitriolic, there's a new enemy out there: the British National Health Service (NHS).
Sure, people have been invoking the specter of socialized medicine for some time now. But in the last few weeks, "NHS-baiting" has become the tactic du jour of conservative politicians and bloggers attacking President Obama's health care initiative.
Perhaps the most egregious example was furnished by Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley argued that his ailing Democratic colleague, Edward Kennedy, would be left to die untreated from a brain tumor in Britain because he would be considered too old to deserve treatment.
An editorial in Investor's Business Daily similarly claimed that someone like world renowned scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the British Health System because his extreme handicaps would render his life "worthless." (Never mind that Hawking is British and says he wouldn't be alive today without the NHS. The comment has since been excised from the Web site.)
But it's not just in the area of alleged death panels where the NHS is being pilloried by conservatives. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal suggested that animals are treated better than humans in Britain.
And take a look at this video -- an advertisement by the Conservative Club for Growth -- which brandishes images of Big Ben and a Union Jack flag as it argues against the dangers of government-managed health care.
The Brits have taken notice. As The Guardian reported yesterday, charges that the NHS is both "evil" and "Orwellian" are being received with dismay by doctors and politicians alike in the U.K. The British are proud of their 61-year-old tax-financed health care system, which spends less per head than the American system but yields a higher life expectancy. The World Health Organization ranks Britain's health care as 18th in the world, while the U.S. is in 37th place.
But while British Embassy officials are keeping a close eye on the terms of this debate to correct any inaccuracies, they are apparently loath to get involved in a domestic debate.
How noble of them. And what a shame that Americans lag so far behind the British in both their health achievements...and their manners.
source
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
It’s funny we hear Republicans say that they do not want “faceless bureaucrats” making medical decisions but they have no problem with “private sector” “faceless bureaucrats” daily declining medical coverage and financially ruining good hard working people (honestly where can they go with a pre-condition). And who says that the “private sector” is always right, do we forget failures like Long-Term Capital, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Enron, Tyco, AIG and Lehman Brothers. Of course the federal government will destroy heathcare by getting involved, Oh but wait, Medicare and Medicaid and our military men and women and the Senate and Congress get the best heathcare in the world, and oh, that’s right, its run by our federal government. I can understand why some may think that the federal government will fail, if you look at the past eight years as a current history, with failures like the financial meltdown and Katrina but the facts is they can and if we support them they will succeed.
How does shouting down to stop the conversation of the healthcare debate at town hall meetings, endears them to anyone. Especially when the organizations that are telling them where to go and what to do and say are Republicans political operatives, not real grassroots. How does shouting someone down or chasing them out like a “lynch mob” advanced the debate, it does not. So I think the American people will see through all of this and know, like the teabagger, the birthers, these lynch mobs types AKA “screamers” are just the same, people who have to resort to these tactics because they have no leadership to articulate what they real want. It’s easy to pickup a bus load of people who hate, and that’s all I been seeing, they hate and can’t debate. Too bad.
Thank you. Very well said.
Post a Comment