Britons are well aware of the limitations of their system. But do they appreciate having the N.H.S. held up by Americans on the right as Exhibit A in discussions of the complete failure of socialized medicine? Do they want to hear that it is “Orwellian,” that it is a breeding ground for terrorism, or that, in the words of Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, it would refuse to treat everyone from “Granny” to Senator Edward M. Kennedy?
No, they do not.
Like squabbling family members who band together against outside criticism, Britons have reacted to the barrage of American attacks on the N.H.S. with collective nationalist outrage.
A new Twitter campaign, “We Love the NHS,” has become one of the most popular topics on the site, helped by Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself, as well as the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron.
Mr. Brown’s eyesight was saved by a National Health surgeon after a rugby accident when he was in college; Mr. Cameron’s 6-year-old son, Ivan, who died in February, was severely disabled and received loving care from the service.
[blockquote] “We Love the NHS,†has become one of the most popular topics on the site, helped by Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself, as well as the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, David Cameron [/blockquote]
Do the good misters Brown and Cameron speak from personal experience because they, too, are part of the NHS? If so, this is a case of “apples and oranges” as over here, I’m sure there is no intent by President Obama and Nancy Pelossi to participate.
During the last few years of his life, my father-in-law lived in the same English home where he had grown up 89 years before. Every morning, an NHS worker came to help him get out of bed, take his pills, and make breakfast. Another came by at noon with dinner and a check on his welfare, while a third put him to bed. The British equivalent of a registered nurse gave him checkups several times a week and a physician made house calls. He was on a cocktail of medications. When he needed hospitalization, he went to one of the best teaching hospitals in the world. For all this, he paid about $10 a week.
His family could NEVER have afforded this in America, so do not tell me that our current system is better than Britain’s. Yes, there are waits for elective surgery and not everybody gets a private room and all the diagnostic tests an insurance company will pay for. However, there are no “death panels” like the ones that ration health care at those same American insurance companies.
As Stephen Hawking said last week, someone with his condition in the United States would have died 30 years ago when our combination of private insurance and hospital charity stopped paying for his care.
The British are right to be outraged when Americans who have not experienced and do not understand their system criticize it. Remember, some of these same critics are the ones who don’t understand that Medicare and Medicaid are already providing a “government option” for many Americans with no more obvious inefficiencies than the system the rest of us undergo…. and no more obvious deficiencies than the National Health Service.
#1, I don’t think you read Ms Lyall’s article carefully enough, the treatment Brown and Cameron received in their own situations is no different than anyone else.
Mr. Brown was seriously injured in a rugby accident when he was a teenager, the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister. He received a long, drawn-out treatment that was unable to save the sight in one eye, but did in the other. This was not special care because he was going to be the Prime Minister one day.
The Camerons’ son, Ivan, was severely disabled, and whatever anyone’s politics the couple have been deeply respected for the care they gave to their boy. He was treated regularly under the NHS, as any other child in that position would have been. When his condition deteriorated earlier this year the Camerons took turns to sit by his bedside in the NHS hospital. Alas, Ivan died, but David Cameron has had nothing but praise for the NHS and the way they were treated.
Yes, truly and honestly, everyone does participate in the NHS in the United Kingdom, including those with pedigrees as long as your arm (like David Cameron and his family). It is certainly not perfect, as the article says, but it is possible for a patient to take out supplementary private medical insurance at a relatively moderate cost. I guess you could say that the British are greatly privileged in that they can get the best of both worlds if they want it.
Right now my four-year-old granddaughter has been diagnosed with an arthritic condition in her knee. We cannot fault the treatment she is receiving under the NHS. Furthermore, our one-year-old grandson was recently hospitalized for suspected swine flu. He would probably have been discharged from Emergency in a few hours in the States, in Britain he was kept in the best children’s hospital in hundreds of miles for a second night of observation, “just to be on the safe side.”
There are a legion of such stories that are being told in defense of the NHS now that it has become a football on the Stateside political scene. The British are natural grumblers, they are as a nation glass-half-empty rather than half-full people, and the NHS, the Royal Mail, and the weather are always going to be easy targets for their disgruntlement. Of course, there are voices which say the whole thing can be done differently, and it probably can, but you show me anywhere else in the world where the whole population is covered for all their basic medical care for just about 50% of the GDP that is spent in the USA.
In the interests of full disclosure let me say that I am British by birth and upbringing and US by citizenship. Having lived and ministered half my life in the USA I moving back to England two years ago. Oh, as someone over sixty I receive free prescriptions, free eye care, and relatively inexpensive dental care.
I have grumbled about the NHS like everyone else, and I think for good reason, but then in the USA I grumble about healthcare delivery, too. I do not believe the NHS would work in the USA, but what is to prevent that most ingenious and creative nation in the world from putting together something that is far, far better than the NHS? I would challenge those who carp against the NHS in the USA that they should go out and create something superior and more cost-effective — and a system that covers every man, woman, and child in each of the fifty states.
[Comment deleted by Elf]
Indeed, all one needs to do today to be labeled as racist is oppose any or all of the sundry trillion-dollar boondoggles launched on a seemingly weekly basis by the Obama administration. I mean, what possible reason could one have besides racial animosity to be against unconsitutional measures that put our nation on a bullet train to insolvency?
John Wilkins, liberal opinion writers have pulled out this racism charge, including Krugman at the NY Times. It’s deeply offensive.
Richard (#3),
I was thinking much the same thing about the perception vs. reality view of the NHS (both in our native land and here in the United States). Certain truths appear to be self-evident: the NHS is past its sixtieth birthday and showing its age; there are distinct regional fluctuations in quality of care; Bevan and his circle never anticipated how increased longevity would alter the calculus of “cradle to grave” care. Nevertheless, the same observations could be made about parts of America’s medical infrastructure.
The NHS is, as I remarked on Stand Firm, something of the curate’s egg – “good in parts.” No modern industrial nation could build something like it from the ground up today, both for reasons of cost and due to the heightened expectations of consumers as to their entitlement. Yet the convictions that inspired it had as much to do with the old-style Methodist conscience of the Welsh valleys and the Durham coalfields (where I was raised, albeit as a university brat) as the secular Socialism of the Fabians.
And, as you also note, private medical insurance and private practice have both endured to this day.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
well, i think it is so funny that Americans (typically right wingers)criticise other countries with no second thought to it but get mighty tighty britches when we are the ones getting it. just go look at past articles on this website, especially regarding bush administration or how we do things as a society…
i have read articles from this author before and i have to say that i don’t think she likes britain very much, all her articles on the surface try to be lighthearted and informative and affectionate but most comments toward the end seem quite critical; it appears to be a pattern imo.
From appearances it’s England’s dental practice that should scare us.
The quality of English dentistry–and English teeth–is quite independent of NHS issues.
I’m half of a transatlantic couple so I and my family have had medical care both in the US and in the UK on the NHS. There is absolutely no comparison! NHS is wonderful. Doctors even make house calls.
I am military by profession, and am retired with a disability. As I said on another thread, I use the Veterans Administration Health Care System exclusively, and I imagine that it’s fair to say that it’s similar in many respects to Britain’s NHS system. I have no problem with it.