Sensible people in Britain seem shocked — shocked! — that right-wing liars in the US are spreading lies about the National Health Service.
In my 27 years in the UK I had consistently excellent healthcare, so I’m a big fan of the NHS. I know that a single-payer system, to say nothing of a massive government bureaucracy for health, isn’t remotely on the agenda in the US, but the American misunderstanding and fear of the NHS is absurd.
Fortunately, today’s Guardian has two helpful articles sorting truth from lies: Is public healthcare in the UK as sick as rightwing America claims? and America’s right turns its fire on the NHS. They’ve also put together a nice spreadsheet of comparative data on health in different countries. There doesn’t seem to be a way to embed the spreadsheet so have a look over on Google Docs.
Update Ezra Klein has more. I missed the Twitter storm on this.
Photo by Pickersgill Reef from Flickr
Though neither type is on the table with U.S. machers, isn’t it useful to maintain the distinction between “single-payer” (Canada) and “government-provided” (UK) health care. (See http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/not-all-socialist-countries-are-alike.html .)
Btw, I’d be happy with either. My father had one heart attack while visiting each, experiencing good care under both systems (and could not get the Canadian system to send a bill to his NY,USA insurance company).
I agree that the distinction is important. That’s why I distinguished both single payer and government run — or at least I tried to.
And I, too, would be happy with either.