A Healthy Dose of One Nation, Under Blog

By On June 20, 2010 · 5 Comments · In Featured, One Nation, Under Blog

A Word with You Press and handsome, published British author Derek Thompson are pleased to bring you this regular feature, which strengthens the ties that bind the Americans and the British – or perhaps strains them with a bit of friendly disagreement.  (Or heated disagreement, as long as you don’t use too many naughty words.)

This week:  Britain’s socialized healthcare vs. publicly managed healthcare. Whether you’re for it, or agin’ it, is a matter of endless, incendiary debate.  But here’s a question, whether you’re American or British:  When is the last time you were in the hospital, or emergency room?  (…of course, we also want to know WHY you were there!) And did you appreciate the system under which you were treated, or did you think that maybe the grass is greener on the other side of the pond?

Me?  Well, I was in the ER a couple months ago, with the mother of all earaches. It was an expensive visit.  I thought about green English grass, and then I took my drugs, and then she was waiting for me, there at the turnstile – the girl with kaleidoscope eyes.

How about you?  Leave your comments below.

 
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  • Derek

    Here's my two penn'orth. The UK's National Health Service is one of the country's greatest achievements. And although there is now talk of applying charges for the wealthier citizens and there are more hospital managers than is probably good for us, it remains an example of what socialism can achieve. Anything that makes for a healthier populace (with more chance of becoming working, taxes-paying individuals, has got to be good.

  • Star5fallonmyheart

    Oh geez. Don't get me started on this. I know if we had universal health care in the United States, I wouldn't have been so scared to go to the doctor and I wouldn't be contending with a bad left ankle…wait, that means I'd be at work right now…

    The only thing I can say is that maybe the best thing is to have universal health care but allow people to choose private insurance as well. Sort of like the mail system; we have the US Postal Service, but we also have UPS and FexEx and the like. It'll keep the government and the private insurances etc. in competition with one another so they'll all be forced to make sure they're doing their job. But it sure would bring some piece of mind to me knowing that if I can't afford health insurance (in about a year I will be off of my parents' insurance), that I'll still be ok if I need to go to the doctor's.

    I know my dad is all up in arm's about the universal health care thing. But I'm not sure why he likes sweating and losing sleep over thinking about any of his children getting hurt and then possibly getting hit with a big bill better than having the government offer the same thing. Probably the same thing about how he complained once about paying taxes for public school although he was putting us through a private, Catholic school.

  • FJDagg

    Under Bush and Obama this country has assumed a 13 trillion dollar debt. If I recall correctly, the bill for “free” healthcare for all (and given current immigration policy, “all” potentially means all 6.8 billion inhabitants of the earth) is projected to add another trillion to that already, astronomical, scarcely conceivable number. (To get a handle on “one trillion,” please see: bit.ly/9p6tpz.)

    The harsh, unalterable fact is, this country cannot afford a cheeseburger and a small coke, let alone an open ended, universal entitlement of QUALITY healthcare for everyone.

    Reality, as a wise person once said, is a bitch.

  • Derek

    We had a bitch once, it was a Golden Retriever. It was called Emma though.

  • Derek

    If you went to Catholic school then you must have some funny childhood stuff to relate (I'm not sure if I'm being ironic here or not!) – remember to post on the funny childhood memories string, for which I've forgotten the title.