Socialized Medicine: The British View
Aug. 14th, 2009 10:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWe Brits love our NHS.
Many of us (including Professor Stephen Hawking) think we owe our lives to it.
Universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery- brilliant, eh? No worries about keeping up with the payments, no women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they don't have the insurance, no-one suffering or dying because they can't afford the drugs.
Sure we have our complaints: the NHS has been mismanaged, over-managed, underfunded- there are constant scandals and controversies- but no politician would dare suggest dismantling it- not even those on the far, far right. The battle for socialized medicine was won in the 1940s- and now there's no British institution- not the monarchy, not the BBC, not the "mother of parliaments"- that's more highly regarded or more firmly bedded in.
We understand you Americans are being offered a system of socialized medicine similar to ours and that some of you, instead of dancing around in your pyjamas and firing off skyrockets, are actually campaigning noisily against it. This surprises us. It fact it bewilders us. If we didn't regard you Americans as cousins we'd be going "Foreigners, eh?" and doing that thing where you hold your forefinger level with your temple and twirl it round and round.
Many of us (including Professor Stephen Hawking) think we owe our lives to it.
Universal healthcare, free at the point of delivery- brilliant, eh? No worries about keeping up with the payments, no women in labour being turned away from hospitals because they don't have the insurance, no-one suffering or dying because they can't afford the drugs.
Sure we have our complaints: the NHS has been mismanaged, over-managed, underfunded- there are constant scandals and controversies- but no politician would dare suggest dismantling it- not even those on the far, far right. The battle for socialized medicine was won in the 1940s- and now there's no British institution- not the monarchy, not the BBC, not the "mother of parliaments"- that's more highly regarded or more firmly bedded in.
We understand you Americans are being offered a system of socialized medicine similar to ours and that some of you, instead of dancing around in your pyjamas and firing off skyrockets, are actually campaigning noisily against it. This surprises us. It fact it bewilders us. If we didn't regard you Americans as cousins we'd be going "Foreigners, eh?" and doing that thing where you hold your forefinger level with your temple and twirl it round and round.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-14 10:57 pm (UTC)In America, people's insurance runs out at a certain point, or as is the case for 15% of the population, they've got no insurance at all. At least the British system has a greater degree of equity.
On my LJ I copied a very eloquent piece from todays' London Evening Standard, written by a Brit who has lived in the States. He's got it right, I think.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-15 08:04 am (UTC)I know, simply from reading my FL how much anxiety and suffering the US health system causes. The NHS isn't perfect, but it's so much more humane.