*not really!
One of the interesting things about observing the current health care rumpus from the other side of the pond is that you get to see what Brits really think about the NHS. It's a curiosity that is by no means unique to Britons, I think, that we reserve the right to complain till we're blue in the face about things we consider "ours," but get very huffy if people from other countries try and do the same.
So whilst you'll find that your average pub conversation about our single-payer system of socialized medicine, or NHS as we'd know it, would emphasize such things as waiting lists, underpaid doctors and hospital-acquired infections, as soon as the GOP starts trying to use these points to make their case against Obama's reform effort, the snark begins.
As Karla Adam in The Washington Post reports, reactions to entirely false claims such as that Ted Kennedy wouldn't get treated in Britain for his brain tumour tend to be pretty short and sweet, not to mention unrepeatable on my demure blog.
It's difficult to prioritize these particular inaccuracies when (a) the anti-reform movement is putting out so many other false claims about the proposed Obama reform, and (b) the Obama reform isn't about single-payer anyway. Still, it's worth pointing out that it's completely untrue that the British system imposes limits on people who are considered "too costly" or "not productive assets for society." We don't have death panels! As the head of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence says in the WaPo, "We don't put a limit on the amount the NHS can spend on an individual patient." It's true that decisions are made nationally about rolling out certain drug treatments on a cost-benefit basis, but this is no different to decisions made by any health care system.
Update: Read all about the #welovethenhs campaign on Twitter.
Think Of the Children
51 minutes ago
