Sex, Lies, and Videotape…..
The health worker unions who are desperately trying to maintain the status quo in the NHS often use disinformation to make their points, or outright lie. They love to compare the NHS to other health delivery systems and with little or no or carefully chosen data, demonstrate what a great deal the British taxpayer is getting for their £104 billion a year. They then argue that the NHS is a mess, completely ruined by the politicians, private sector, and anything or anyone else who are not associated with them. What a great existence! No responsibility for anything. Reminds me of the kids when they are standing next to a broken vase on the floor that crashed to the ground and broke when they ran into it. They always told me it wasn’t their fault. I can except that from a 5 year old, but adults?
The US system has been the most fertile ground for providing ammunition to an arsenal that is devoid of fact, yet intended to fill the audience with fear. Let’s examine several of the lies that are told to the British population by healthcare unions, politicians, and NHS leaders.
“There are 40 million people in the United States without health insurance.” This is true and the number factual. The inference is that all of these people do not have access to healthcare. Let’s examine first the composition of that number and second the reality behind the inference.
It is true that 40 million people do not have paid for private healthcare insurance in the US. Many of those 40 million actively choose not to. They are younger Americans who feel that at their stage in life it is not needed. This decision can be a disastrous one if they are the victims of an accident, but they have exercised their right to make a choice about what they would like to do for themselves. Another not insignificant percentage of this number are those who are between jobs and will pick-up coverage when they take-up their new posts. It is true that a number are people who can’t afford health insurance. This group however is covered by insurance provided by the state, a product called Medicaid. Because it isn’t a private product they do not get counted as having private insurance.
The largest lie that unions and others use to inject fear into the patient population is that these 40 million people must die in their homes, hovels, boxes, or wherever they live because the big bad private sector won’t see them. This is an outright lie. It is against Federal law, and punishable by 10 years in prison for a healthcare provider in the US to refuse to see a patient based on the ability to pay. The effect of this is that usually people who are at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale get very good treatment, and are never turned away.
In the UK, access to healthcare for the less fortunate members of society is abysmal. In Germany or France, you are not forced to go to your local hospital for what in most other nations, with the exception of fewer and fewer ex soviet block states, is routine investigations. The factory worker who must bring home his wages to make ends meet is unlikely to take the time and cost (parking fees, bus fares, petrol) to go to an antiquated District General Hospital for tests. It is more likely he will avoid the cost, disinterested staff and wasting of his time at all costs. This is real health inequality in a nation that prides itself on the “free at the point of use” slogan.
Until we stop allowing the Doctors, Nurses and politicians to use other countries as smoke and mirrors to hide the extreme deficiencies in our system, change will never come and patients will continue to not get the care they deserve and some will die as a result.
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