From Dispatches From the Culture Wars' "Dumbass Quote of the Day" file, an anti-health-care op-ed that says that Stephen Hawking wouldn't get any health care in the UK because our "socialist" system doesn't value the lives of disabled people. As Culture Wars notes, "Stephen Hawking was born and raised in the UK and has lived there all his life. He teaches at Cambridge. That's in the UK. This ranks up there with the French not having a word for entrepreneur."
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
How House Bill Runs Over Grandma (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars
I have continued to read with abject horror how stupid most of these American anti-state healthcare nutters are. Over here in the UK we have been lucky enough to have the National Health Service since just after WW2 and what a service it is.
Nobody is turned away from free medical aid, regardless of how rich or poor you are, which country you hail from, what race or colour you are or if you are old or handicapped. In my dealings with national healthcare the standards have been exemplary and the professionalism of the staff are second to none.
Sure, we also have out private healthcare for those who want an even higher level of personal care (e.g. your own room and a slave instead of a nurse) or cosmetic surgery, but with our new laws you can no longer use private healthcare to 'jump the queue' for transplants and other limited services.
I just can't see why some American people are so against a National Healthcare Trust, it's not going to undermine the level of healthcare at all, in fact it will make it better.
They may say it's too costly, I say look at how many trillions of dollars you have spent fighting yet another lost war, a tenth of the US military budget would easily cover the cost of Obama's plans.
They keep mentioning that certain individuals or groups will not get the care they need because certain treatments are too expensive, well I'm thinking most Americans have insurance to cover any such a contingency anyway, even though nobody would be turned away from treatment should they need it. There have been certain cases in the UK where there is a 'post-code lottery' as to whether or not you can receive certain drugs due to budget shortfalls within an area, but most of these cases involved drugs which were not registered as safe in our country and offered little or no difference in helping to treat the individual involved or they wanted an extra drug that was not specified by their consultants, in which case you have the choice to go private.
Over here in the UK we keep hearing horror stories from US healthcare when poor people without a credit card are refused medical aid, or if they are given the care they needed and have no insurance they might as well die as the costs involved would kill them financially anyway, so surely free medical care for all would be a good thing.
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