One thing that puzzles me about the current health care debate:
If the Canadian and British health care systems are so awful, how the Canadians and the British aren’t trading in their model for our wonderful free market system?
The answer is pretty obvious to any ‘Merican who has actually bothered to talk with British and Canadian citizens about their health care. First, the anti-reform claims of long wait times and rationed care in the single payer systems of our closest allies range from huge horking exaggerations to outright lies. Second, no matter how bad single-payer is, the free market system is much, much worse. As one of my former co-workers, a British ex-pat who moved to the US for a job in high tech, once put it, “I would hate to be sick in the US.” Should anyone is his family become ill, he plans on high tailing it back to Britain with all possible speed. He’s seen what happens here when someone comes down with a chronic or serious illness, he’s seen what happens there when someone gets sick, and he’s not stupid.
However, the anti-health care reform faction hasn’t let a little thing like facts get in their way. My very favorite claim, by Investor’s Business Daily, claims that Britain’s NHS would have withheld care from the prominent physicist Professor Stephen Hawking because he suffers from Muscular Dystrophy.
"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK where the National Health Service would say the quality of life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."
But wait, you say, isn’t Hawking British? Yeppers, Hawking IS British, he was born there and lives there, has all his life. Guess who supplies the care that keeps that brilliant mind alive? Yup, NHS, Hawking himself confirms it. He’s actually a big fan of the NHS. Investor’s Business Daily was forced to admit that was a bad example. Gee, ya think?
Matter of fact, the Brits are getting rather cheesed off with the constant claims that their health care system sucks. As spokesperson the British Medical association says, “"The NHS sees one million people every 36 hours and 93 percent of patients rate their care as good or excellent."
No one is going to deny that there are problems with single payer. Seriously is there any institution that has been set up by imperfect human beings that can claim perfection? But let’s not let perfection be the enemy of good and better. While the British papers love to print examples of the NHS’s failures, lets not forget that examples abound of the failures of the American free market system.
Now let’s ask the question if Prof Hawking would have stood a chance in America. The answer really depends on whether or not he had insurance. Hawking was diagnosed at 21, long before he came to recognized as one of the most brilliant minds of his generation. When you are 21 in the US, if you are coved by insurance, chances are it’s your parents’, especially if you are in college. Most polices will only cover children until they are 23 or 25 and have a life time cap of 1 million bucks. Once you are dropped from your parents insurance, just try getting another policy with a pre-existing condition of Lou Gehrig’s disease.
I maintain that Prof Hawking, as a 21 year old college student with ALS, would not have stood a chance in the US. There is a high probability that he would have fallen between the cracks of our pathetic social safety net, and he would not have lived long enough to become the internationally recognized physicist he is today. I submit that in the US it was more likely that he would have become just another loser on disability, locked away in a state institution and forgotten, except by his family.
Now whose health system is better?TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
Anonymous guy
FusunA
Donna Carbone
Dr. Susanne Freeborn
Maureenow
Damon E Walters
Salon.com
Comments
"The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman simply on the ground that it is the enemy; and it must be attacked just in the same way as the fire brigade will give its full assistance to the humblest cottage as readily as to the most important mansion. Our policy is to create a national health service in order to ensure that everybody in the country, irrespective of means, age, sex, or occupation, shall have equal opportunities to benefit from the best and most up-to-date medical and allied services available."
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill, March 1944, arguing for the establishment of a British National Health Service.
.
Verbal Remedy: I think I understand why I have a headache today, my head exploded! I wonder how long I will ahve to wait for an appointment with my doc.....
http://open.salon.com/blog/dragonfly/2009/08/11/socialized_medicine_bring_it
Rated~~