It's different in the US. Obama wants to introduce insurance cover so that the 46 MILLION Americans who aren't covered can access healthcare. He isn't (unfortunately) proposing a national health service which would treat everybody - the proposal is to retain private hospitals and reform the insurance system which funds them.
So from this side of the pond, this looks like a slightly kinder version of the capitalist model which has served the US so well (ho ho ho). To many Americans, however, this is communism. Death threats are being made, supporters of healthcare are being beaten up, and now anti-healthcare activists are calling on meeting attendees to bring their guns. What a grown-up way to respond to a weak proposal from a massively endorsed president.
Update:
This is all getting very nasty. American conservatives are spreading lies about the NHS to scare Americans, such as the claim that people over 59 don't get cardiac care, and that Ted Kennedy's brain tumour wouldn't be treated here because he's 77 (well done, Senator Chuck Grassley). Add to this Sarah Palin's description of Obama as 'evil' and her claim that her Down's Syndrome child would face a 'death panel' and we have the makings of a lynch mob. And yes, I'm well aware that that term is racially aligned. There's a nasty undercurrent swirling around Obama which runs 'socialist'-'UnAmerican'-'not born in the US' (untrue)-Muslim (untrue, and who cares anyway)-black-shouldn't be President.
Speak up for the NHS. As Neal points out in the comments, the UK spends less, but spends it better and more fairly. Lots of American pensioners take coach trips to Canada to buy their prescription drugs - pensioners here don't pay a penny (until the Tories get in again) and so don't have to go over to France, Ireland or wherever.
4 comments:
Agree completely (yet again, boring aren't I?). I'm incredibly depressed and disillusioned as a result of our dysfunctional society, but I only have to look at America to remind me how much worse things could be. It's hardly any wonder Obama isn't aiming for an NHS, given the response he's getting to this much watered down version of helping the not so well off. I recently read an article in the press that said America has 18.7 million vacant homes, and assuming four people could live in one property that's enough empty houses to accommodate the entire populations of Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway. Now, I'm no expert on what the homelessness figures are in America but I imagine it's risen significantly as a result of the failures of sub prime mortgages, and I would have thought a better use of these homes would be to house these people instead of leaving the houses empty. But no, it is the god MONEY that is to be worshipped and revered and the centre of all society. America - leader of the free world, bringing civilisation and democracy to the likes of Afghanistan and Iraq.......I think not.
We're equally blown away here by the US reaction - the news is full of it. When did a little watered down socialism get so freakin' frightening?
I think I feel the same way about criticism of the NHS as I do about a close family member, it's okay for me or another Brit to criticise it but when someone else does it I feel a bit defensive, especially when it's coming from people in a country where there is such disparity in the provision between rich and poor.
The World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place, even though they spend a higher percentage of their GDP on it. There's clearly something going wrong there.
I once decided that a Mexican girl I went on a few dates with wasn't for me when she criticised the NHS. I'd had first hand experience of Mexican healthcare, and although the staff there were incredibly hard working and friendly, they were very understaffed and underfunded, but what she was talking about was her private healthcare in Mexico City.
If only it were socialism…
Neal - that's very principled. Respect!
BTW: the post title is the opening line of the Aeneid - 'I sing of arms and the man'.
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