The Silent Majority

I found this jewel lurking on one of my favorite sites (sarcasm) Crooks & Liars. It attempts to malign the health care system in the United States while holding up those in other countries. Let’s look at this logically.

The article begins:

I guess the UK is sick of hearing we namby-pamby Yanks brag on our health care system and trash theirs, disregarding the fact that the UK pays significantly less per capita for health care and achieves far better outcomes. And they've decided to push back:

The intro makes an interesting assertion with absolutely no evidence to back it up; in what ways are they achieving far better outcomes? If the healthcare is so much better why do so many foreigners come to the United States for complicated procedures? Most of Canada’s high risk pregnancies are delivered in the United States; why is that?

Britons love to mock their National Health Service — just don't let anyone else poke fun at it.

They particularly resent the British universal health care system being used as a punching bag in the battle against President Barack Obama's proposed reforms.

Conservatives in the United States have relied on horror stories from Britain's system to warn Americans that Obama is trying to impose a socialized health care system that would give the government too much power.

In an interview widely interpreted here as an attack on the U.K., Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told a local radio station last week that "countries that have government-run health care" would not have given Sen. Edward Kennedy, who suffers from a brain tumor, the same standard of care as in the U.S. because he is too old.

The superheated debate broadened this week to include renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, a British icon who suffers from motor neurone disease. A U.S. newspaper wrote that under the British system Hawking would be allowed to die — an assertion that Hawking said was absurd.

"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking said, joining the ranks of those praising Britain's system.

Britons say the country's universal health care system, which provides free medical care, is far fairer than the current American system.

Again the assertion is made but no evidence is offered. If the system is so much better across the pond it should be an easy thing to find some proof, some statistics that support that stance.

"If you can't pay, you have a very, very second-rate service or you can't get health service at all," he said.

As evidenced by all of the people dying in the streets from lack of health care. This assertion is “absurd” to quote Mr. Hawkins. I would hardly be considered rich and my health care is not just adequate it is superb. Give some examples of this second rate service and then contrast it with how it is considerably better in the UK, Canada, Cuba or whatever socialized system the author holds out as superior to the U.S. system.

Britain's left-leaning government has responded to criticism offering selected statistics that show England out performing the U.S. in health spending per capita, life expectancy and more.

Newspapers have jumped in, with the Daily Mirror calling the United States "the land of the fee" because of the way patients are forced to pay for medical services.

God forbid, people have to pay for a service. I guess by such reasoning we are “forced” to pay for food, clothing and houses as well. To be blunt I could care less what the UK or any other country thinks about our health care. Most European countries are a mess socially and economically anyway.

We should choose to follow those who have lead by some great example, not those who have to pass laws to limit emergency room rates to “just” three hours. No doubt our system needs work, but I think to follow the lead of other failed systems is idiotic.