I met this gentlemen doing a book signing at Fort Benning several years back while he and his wife were living in the US. It is a first person perspective and well worth sharing with all of you.
" Hi Ed , just a few thoughts on what you mentioned in your blog about the US healthcare reforms . I believe that there is a lot of opposition in your country on the proposed health care initiative as proposed by the President .
My wife Jane was a pharmacy technician when we lived in Georgia , and when she heard that the Democrats were proposing a health care system akin to the UK's NHS (National Health System ) , she said it will never happen as the medical insurance companies and the drug companies hold too much power in the US and will lobby in Congress to stop this happening. She has had experience of their power dealing with them on a daily basis making enquiries to health care insurance companies on behalf of customers . She said it was not a happy experience in most cases. Speaking from her own experience, she said that the drug companies were greedy bastards hell bent on ripping off the American people in cahoots with the insurance companies. The drugs were way over priced too .
From what I have seen on TV and read in the more reputable newspapers, the American people are being whipped up into a frenzy by the supporters of private medicine/insurance companies/drug companies and spreading the rumour around that a socialised medicine (NHS) system is the first step towards communism. What utter nonsense !
Our NHS system came into being in 1947 during the dark and austere days of immediate post war Britain . There was not much money going around (much like today ), we were still in a period of rationing only a little better than it was during the war. There was a lot of unemployment after huge numbers of men were
de-mobbed from the Armed Forces ,and our then Labour Govt. initiated our much loved NHS.
I myself was born in 1949 and my mother was in the maternity unit for 10 days , not because there was anything wrong with her , this was just the way it was done in those days , to give the mother a good post birth rest. The cost to my mother and father -- nothing ! No worrying bills coming in weeks or months later . This freedom of worry helped produce one of the biggest baby booms in British history .
The introduction of the NHS into Britain didn't turn us into communists, far from it . Nearly everyone in our country has benefited from free health care , doctors , dentists and hospitals . I say nearly everyone , perhaps the only ones not to have received any free treatment yet, are the relative newcomers to our country from the Third World , but if or when they need treatment , it is readily available to all , including Americans on vacation.
Just suppose an elderly American is visiting the UK on vacation or perhaps re-visiting an old US airbase that he was stationed at during the war , and he unfortunately has a heart attack . An ambulance is called for , he is whisked off to hospital where he has to undergo an emergency operation and spends the next 4 weeks in hospital before returning home to the US.
What is absent from this scenario seen on a daily basis in the US ? The ambulance and the services of the paramedics are free. The visit to the operating theatre and the skills of some of the best surgeons in the world are free. The post operative care in the hospitals and the attendance of some very caring and skilled nurses are free. What is missing is this . There is no army of overpaid , underworked 'suits' wandering around with a clip board to make sure the incoming 'customers' to their hospital business have the correct medical insurance cards . These hospitals are run as a business , our hospitals in contrast are run as universal health care centres for the benefit of all with no care about how much profits are being made. Nobody has to carry a card saying which health care provider has to be billed .
There are scaremongerers in the US saying that the British NHS has enormously long waiting lists for operations . This may be true in some of the larger cities with larger populations , but it is not common throughout the UK , and certainly not in the area that I live in . And of course , if emergency treatment is required , there are no waiting lists.
The NHS is the model that all other European nations based their own Universal Health Care systems on. I was visiting Germany many years ago and broke a tooth. I went straight to a dentist and got it all sorted out , said " Danke " and walked out . No bills , no payments , no worries.
Imagine Ed, in your own recent experience , having to be transferred from one hospital in one city to another hospital in another city , you would be transferred either by ambulance or if going from one of our many peripheral islands to the mainland , being transferred by helicopter , by our wonderful Air Ambulance service , and not having to worry about where the money was coming from . No worries about having to sell your house or your big boys toys to pay the medical bills .
Call it what you like , Socialised Medicine , Universal Health Care or an American NHS, what it is not, is the first step to a communist system . What it is, is the first step towards the US finally catching up with the rest of the developed world in providing worry free health care for all . Nobody will have to worry about being sick again !
But , I think my wife may be right , universal health care in the US will never happen because the big business that runs the US hospitals will lose their overblown profits , and we all know , that ain't gonna happen!
Of course this is just my take on things , much like yourself Ed , I'm rather opinionated !
Take care , hope you are making a good recovery from your own recent surgery".
Jif Fairlamb
1 comment:
Amen!!!
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