We've been hearing a lot of slander directed towards the National Health Service in Britain recently, mainly from the far right conservatives in the US as a way of trying to derail Obama's healthcare reforms.
There is a lot of misinformation being spread, a mix of half-truths and downright lies which unfortunately our diplomats in the US are unwilling to tackle because it would be encroaching on a domestic issue.
Firstly I'd like to make it clear that I'm in no way offering a suggestion on how the US should deal with the healthcare issue, this is something that should obviously be decided by the American electorate. I do feel though that it's important to set the record straight and counter the lies that are being spread by the vested interests in the US.
An Overview of the NHS
The NHS in Britain is the world's fourth largest employer with over 1 million full time staff. It was set up a few years after WW2 under the belief that if money can be found to kill people, money can be found to help people. The NHS provides healthcare that is free at point of service, and provides care for all citizens of the UK. Visitors to the country can also benefit from free emergency care when needed. Prescriptions are subsidised by the NHS, and capped at just under 7GBP, irrelevant of how many drugs are on the prescription, and they are completely free for the unemployed and the elderly.
The picture being painted by the conservatives is one of state-oppression, calling our NHS "stalinist" and comparing it to the Nazis and so forth. What they don't realise is that the overwhelming majority of UK citizens WANT this kind of healthcare, and recently statistics show around a 75% approval rating for the facility. In the UK, people simply do not want to have their healthcare dictated by profit-orientated HMOs.
Myths
Lack of Choice
The right are attacking our lack of choice in Britain. This is completely false: any citizen can choose where they get treated. If unhappy with a doctor, they are free to choose another clinic. Citizens are also entitled to choose a private healthcare option if they so wish, and there are numurous options available. Any citizen can get treated at any hospital in the UK, irrelevant of where they live.
Dealing with Bureaucrats
A popular myth being portrayed is that decisions on healthcare are made by politicians. This couldn't be further from the truth. Doctors in the UK are free to treat anyone as they see fit, which is governed by the patients need. Politicians are NEVER involved with any decisions about healthcare treatment. The rumours of Obama's "Death Panels" is complete nonsense: in "socialised" medicine, the doctors are the decisions makers, bureaucrats are never involved with this kind of thing.
Value of Life
There is a lot being said about the $22,750 figure our system allegedly puts on human life. This is a misunderstanding of the system and is based roughly on a 30,000GBP limit placed on new drug therapies. If a drug or treatment is more expensive, it needs to be proved to be successful and of benefit to the country to be given in common use. NHS treatment doesn't stop when it costs a certain amount, as those being treated for cancer in Britain would cost a whole lot more than that, yet aren't denied treatment simply on cost. This figure is just to make sure that new drugs and new treatments provide value for money for the NHS and it's patients.
Age Limit
It's been said that Ted Kennedy, for example, at the age of 77 wouldn't be eligible to have his brain tumour treated. This is a downright lie: there is no age limit on any NHS treatment. They are obliged to treat people the same, irrelevant of age.
As a chief exec put it: "It is neither true nor is it anything you could extrapolate from anything we've ever recommended to the NHS."
From my personal experience of the NHS, I am very happy with the level of service it provides. It has never let me down, nor any of my friends and family. Between us we've seen broken limbs, severe cuts, heart attacks, degenerative illnesses and even cancers and all have been treated by the NHS to a more than satisfactory degree. I've never known of anyone who has been denied treatment for any reason, and no one I know chooses to have private healthcare over the public option.
With all that said, any Brit will agree the system has its flaws, as any system in the world does. There is constant room for improvement in the service, which is acknowledged by not only the people, but by the government and the NHS itself. The NHS ranks as the 18th best healthcare provider in the world (compared to the US's 37th best), which isn't too bad. But to call our system "evil" and "Orwellian" is just nonsense and actually very insulting. We're proud of our NHS and wouldn't have it any other way.
I'm sure there are cases of people unhappy with the treatment they've recieved - it would be impossible to please everybody all of the time, but overall, everybody recieves the care they need, when they need it.
From the Guardian newspaper this morning:
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David Levinthal, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Centre for Responsive Politics, said the sheer scale of the issue, which will affect the entire trajectory of US medical care, was arousing passions: "It's no surprise you have factions from every political stripe attempting to influence the debate and some of those groups are certainly playing to the deepest fears of Americans. There's been a great deal of documented disinformation propagated throughout the country." Defenders of Britain's system point out that the UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US. The World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place. The British Medical Association said a majority of Britain's doctors have consistently supported public provision of healthcare. A spokeswoman said the association's 140,000 members were sceptical about the US approach to medicine: "Doctors and the public here are appalled that there are so many people on the US who don't have proper access to healthcare. It's something we would find very, very shocking."
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I would be more than happy to answer any questions about our system to anyone that is curious.
