NHS

So, I loved this article by American Stephen Amidon, "Why I lve Britain's socialized healthcare system", at Salon.com.

I'm really getting sick of hearing people's unfounded, scare-mongered fears of socialized medicine. To be frankly honest, I think people who are against this are fools, easily manipulated by all those who stand to lose big $$$ if healthcare is reformed. As Representative Barney Frank says, "You don't waste your time on people with whom you completely disagree."

Here is the most interesting part, in reference to the "proposed" government "death panels" for the old:

"I saw it most clearly, however, in the treatment my in-laws received at the end of their lives. My wife’s father, who suffered from acute myloid dysplasia, spent his last year receiving constant care, including several sprints to the hospital for emergency transfusions, where doctors struggled heroically to keep him alive. His final week was spent in a very comfortable single hospice room whose French doors opened onto a terrace overlooking his beloved Yorkshire moors. When he died, he left us his house, and not a penny of healthcare debt. My mother-in-law, stricken by arthritis, got two artificial hips and two knees from the NHS, and received daily home visits from social workers during the last three years of her life so she would not have to go into a nursing home. Neither of these septuagenarians was working at the time. The amount of money spent on their care must have been staggering. And yet, despite shouldering this yoke of decency, the nation prospered around them. People were buying French wine and German cars and second homes. They were attending Cats and supporting Arsenal and going on holidays in the sun. Sure, people complained about the NHS. But the British complain about everything. Living without a public health system, on the other hand, was unthinkable."

Yeah, sounds TERRIBLE.....

-J