It seems the British have had enough slander of their healthcare system:
Britain's political and medical establishment have launched a concerted defence of the National Health Service in response to the attacks on the system in the US triggered by Barack Obama's plans for American healthcare reform.
More belowthe fold....
After Stephen Hawking set the Record straight about how the NHS kept him alive, now MPs and medical practitioners are actively defending the NHS.
Gordon Brown and several ministers have already joined a Twitter campaign defending the NHS. The DoH is circulating a fact sheet prepared for Americans and Lord Darzi, the surgeon who served as a health minister, is giving interviews with American television to defend the NHS. Unison, the public service union, said it was sending literature to its sister unions in the US to counter the "gross lies and distortions". Prescott recorded a message on YouTube telling American voters about the history of the NHS. Aiming his message as much at a UK audience, Prescott focused on Hannan, who wants the NHS to be replaced with a Singapore-style system that would involve patients having individual health accounts.
So what are the facts about how the NHS compares with the non-system we have in the U.S.?
In its briefing document for the American press, the DoH points out that people with many of the most common diseases die earlier or in greater numbers in the US than in England. America fares badly in a direct comparison of key health performance indicators. "We've done this to clarify things and in order not to allow misconceptions about the NHS to go unchallenged," said one source.
World Health Organisation data shows that life expectancy in England – 78 – is a year longer than in the US and that nine babies out of every 1,000 born die before they reach five in America, compared with six in England, the DoH dossier says.
Personal disclaimer: My wife and I have probably the best insurance in America today. However, she has several serious medical conditions, and her prescriptions are list priced at several thousand dollars a month, of which we pay just a small percentage. But we both know that she cannot leave her job, and if she ends up on disability, we have a very big problem despite the LTD insurance we have. I am adamantly in favor of single payer, because insurance companies are not in the business of providing healthcare, they are in the business of making money.
Fuck them all, and all their water carriers too.