London Fog, Jaguar Cars and Socialized Medicine

 I’m doing my best to avoid listening to the comments of dishonest politicians and moronic media commentators sounding off about healthcare reform, but some of it does get through.  Most of it I can shake off, but the one thing that gets me riled up is how the politicos who are against any kind of public option express their opposition by defiling the UK National Health Service.  

Not that the public option bears any relation to the socialized form of health care that the English enjoy (and at the same time complain about because they haven’t experienced a system like the one we have here), but I have heard senators and congressmen stand up and, without blinking an eye, blatantly tell out-and-out lies about how health services are delivered in Great Britain as if there were some actual connection.  Some cover their butts by prefacing their lies by saying, “I am told that . . .”  but most don’t even bother to do that.  They just tell the lies knowing that the great American public, largely ignorant of what actually goes on outside their own country, will believe them. 

 They spread lies like healthcare in the UK is rationed, or that life-saving operations are withheld for the elderly because it is not economic, or that waiting lists are so long you are likely to die before you get the care.  It is a travesty of the truth.  Unlike in the U.S., no one is denied the best that medicine can offer irrespective of age, condition, ethnic background, religion or ability to pay.  No-one in the UK goes bankrupt because of obscenely inflated medical bills – unlike the 700,000 people per year who do so in the US.  No one loses the right to free healthcare if they lose their job.  Healthcare is free to everyone and is never denied whereas in America 20,000 people die each year because they can’t afford a doctor or their insurance company dumped them.   

 Everyone in the UK has a family doctor.  Some doctors in the UK still do home visits – unheard of in the U.S.  Doctors are well paid (my son is one, so I know), but not paid according to how many tests they order and procedures they perform.  They are patient outcome oriented, not money driven.  (Example: They get paid a bonus if a patient gives up smoking.) 

 If you really want to learn how the U.S. healthcare system stacks up against all others in the civilized world, read The Healing of America: A Global Quest of Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care, by T.R. Reid.  You’ll see that we compare very badly on almost every criteria. The one thing he found that set the U.S. apart from every other country was that all the others think of universal health care for all their citizens as being a moral issue.  In America it is seen as matter of cost.

 I was brought up in the UK system and I know it well.  It began right after the war and naturally it had its problems.  In the fifties and sixties it did get a reputation for inefficiency and for extended waiting times for non-emergency operations.   But old ideas take a long time to die.  Americans still believe London is shrouded in fog most of the time and that if you drive a Jaguar you need one for the shop and one for the road.  The Clean Air Act of 1951 removed the fog, the Jaguar is now said to be the most reliable car on the road and there are no unreasonable waiting lists for health care in the UK. 

 But the politicians don’t want you to know that.  They don’t want you to read a study by The Commonwealth Fund that showed Americans wait a whole lot longer to see primary care physicians than patients in Britain, Germany, Australia or New Zealand — all countries with strong public health systems.

 The U.K. National Health Service is not perfect of course, but I can assure you that if Americans knew the truth they would be so envious of what people take for granted in the UK, they would be putting their anti-public option Republican politicians in the stocks and pelting them with rotten eggs and tomatoes until they promised to provide something on a par with it.

 Shortly after coming to live in the U.S, in 1984, I dated a girl who was having severe problems with her colon.  Her condition was life threatening.  I asked her when she was going to have something done about it.  “There’s nothing I can do,” she said.  “I have no health insurance.”  Well, can’t you get some?” I asked naively.  “Of course not,” she said. “I’m already sick.  No one will insure me if I’m sick.”  “But you need an operation,” I cried.  “I know, but I can’t pay for it.  It would cost many thousands of dollars, and I am not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.  I have a job, albeit a low paid one.”

 This was a profound shock to me.  I just couldn’t get my mind around the fact that an American citizen who desperately needed medical care was unable to get it because she didn’t have insurance provided by her employer.  Not only that, she couldn’t get insurance because of a “pre-existing condition.”  It was a huge shock and I really haven’t gotten over it to this day.  It is still beyond my comprehension how any society claiming to be civilized and wealthy can call this a sane health care system. 

 For many years I was without any insurance at all.  Finally, I managed to pay for a policy with a $5,000 deductible and a prayer to go with it.  I have lived long enough now to qualify for Medicare.  I am fairly healthy but have had occasion to use it for some minor things and some preventive medicine.  I am very satisfied with it.  To me, Medicare seems very much like the UK National Health System. I notice that I am feeling much more secure now that I am not worrying about whether my insurance company, mindful of its quarterly report, might refuse some treatment I need or increase my premiums to the point where I could not afford it any more. 

 But politicians are so deeply embedded in the quagmire of their own ideology they just can’t admit that we already have a form of socialized medicine that works quite well and could well be extended and modified to suit everyone if they would only get the costs under control..  If they did admit such a thing, they might have to start driving Jaguar cars and letting it be known that London is no longer shrouded in fog, which is more than I can say about their rhetoric in the current debate.