NHS = doubleplusbad
Aug. 13th, 2009 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebnessSomething alarming happened this week, something which has the British media up in arms. Our special friends, our close cousins across the Atlantic, decided that we run an ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian’ state. The focus of their ire? Our very own NHS.
Brits were baffled. People were genuinely mystified, even hurt, that (some) Americans had turned on us so quickly. The British embassy said that it would ‘quietly correct erroneous reporting’, which came as little comfort. And then came the anger: the Twitter # tags. (welovetheNHS!), Facebook groups, newspaper debates, blogs, the repelling of wankerface Tories trying to paint our healthcare as woefully inadequate. Why would Americans believe this claptrap, people ask?
Of course, very few Americans believe this rubbish. You Americans here on my LJ are my friends because you’re not these hatred-spewing, fact-phobic imbeciles. And if you do have quibbles about socialised healthcare, you debate it. You don't Godwin yourself by comparing Obama to Hitler. However, I am going to write about this and set some things straight because it’s the right thing to do. I am not debating the ins and outs of Obama's healthcare plan (because in truth, I don't know the ins and outs of it), but what I will do is explain Why The NHS is Not a Bad Thing.
First off: prescriptions on the NHS. All prescriptions are at a set price, which admittedly can sometimes work against you (your chemist will usually advise if buying over the counter is cheaper). The set price is ₤7.20 per item in England, ₤4 in Scotland. You pay this for anything from an inhaler to medicine for the most rare conditions. In Wales, by the way, prescriptions cost a big fat 0.
But what about the cost to the NHS itself? Drugs companies certainly don’t charge them ₤0 for their precious pills. Being a nosy sort, I used to enjoy flicking through the drugs index on idle afternoons whilst working at the Mental Health Unit. I remember how surprised I was when I saw the price listings for a 28-day course of something such as Paroxetine: over ₤300. That’s ₤293 cost absorbed by the NHS each month you are on those pills, the full ₤300 if you’re on low income or unemployed. Or Welsh.
This is socialised healthcare.
I have no time for the drugs companies and their strangehold upon healthcare. When I was working in the...*shudder* bowel clinic, the secretaries there talked excitedly of Friday lunch. Friday lunch was laid on by a drugs company every single week – an ostentatious buffet on hospital grounds to say ‘thank you’ and build up a partnership with the consultants. The one I worked for would pointedly refuse to even enter the room during that hour, every week. He would not be bought. He would not be bribed. He would not put his own personal interests (and wealth) above the care of his patients.
This is socialised healthcare.
But what about Spain? Well, Spanish healthcare is ranked higher in WHO than the UK and the US. Let me tell you about it: I take Omeprazole (at 2 euros for a month’s supply!) for chronic acid reflux. One fine day a few months ago, I get to work and vomit blood. I go to the doctor that morning (I am seen within the hour, for free). I am referred to the hospital and sent to triage (free). I have bloods taken (free), x-rays (free), a gastroscopy (free) and I am given a written report (free) and medicines (free!)
This was at a time when I had been very silly with money and didn’t have much in the bank. I would not have been able to be seen even if the cost were 50 euros.
There was a very sick American girl I talked with there (they gave a tentative diagnosis of Crohn’s) who panicked throughout because she was having all these tests, consultations and was being prescribed medicine, but of course she wasn’t a Spanish resident and didn’t have European health insurance. Perhaps she should just forget the treatment and get a flight home to America so she’d be covered by her insurance there?
No need to panic; she paid fourteen euros. She was disbelieving: ‘It would cost me more to be seen at home!’
What is the alternative? Refuse care to her on the grounds of money? The consultants were not interested in her nationality; they rushed her through because they were concerned at her tests.
This is social healthcare.
Back in 2006, my father suffered his first major illness – a stroke. My mum phoned me at work (which just happened to be the hospital where he was admitted) and told me he had fallen and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. I tore down the stairs and into A&E (ER for Americans) where he was being treated. The care was compassionate, quick, understanding. I was a nervous wreck, my sister crying, my father scared. There was no third-world pushing him to the back of the queue. There was no refusal to treat a pensioner on the grounds that it would cost the NHS too much.
When he was diagnosed with cancer, the consultant asked for us to come in and see him. My family were taken to a private room and had the news broken gently to us. The consultant told us how sorry he was, that he was there to answer any questions, that he would do his best. And he did. I cannot tell you how sensitive and yet strong that consultant is, how much he cares about his patients. Every worried phone call, every bedside question – he was there to answer.
In the UK, cancer is subject to a two-week rule: if you are suspected of cancer, you must be seen by a consultant within two weeks at the absolute maximum. My father was seen within a day. He was operated on within the week.
This year, my father had a heart attack. He also needs an operation for cataracts. This is a man, terminally ill, over sixty. Not once has the NHS suggested he should just let it all go. Not once has there been a quibble about the cost. Oh yes, he had his cataracts operation delayed: not because it wasn’t worth it, but because they were worried about the stress anaesthetic would have on his heart.
What does it do to the psyche in these moments to worry about the cost? Will the insurance company cover this? What if they want to take x-rays? What about the excess?
WHY would these questions ever be appropriate at these times? Why would any society ever even consider this normal?
These moments in hospitals can be humanity at its most broken. I have heard gut-wrenching screaming coming from emergencies when working there. You never think about the cost of life beginning or ending here. You just think, ‘God, please let them be all right.’
Surely that’s the way it should be? It makes me want to cry, to think of ordinary, decent people crippled under the weight of propaganda by these heartless, grasping companies. We’re all used to seeing greedy business riding roughshod over humanity, but this is a matter of life and death. I feel like shaking those morons protesting at Obama daring to consider healthcare a right. I absolutely cannot fathom it.
The Guardian is my favourite online paper not just for the articles, but because of the wonderfully trollish (and surprisingly intolerant) debate that springs up there each day. When the right-wingers trotted out the stories of death panels and older people being killed off and What if Stephen Hawking were British? (lulz), people banded together. Comment after comment after comment: Don’t knock this. The NHS is one of the few things that we’re proud of. Really, why wouldn’t we be? This is progress. This is society doing the right thing.
If you don’t like socialised healthcare, there is always the alternative of private medicine: you can opt for private treatment in any country. Socialised healthcare just means that you will never have to sell up your house to pay hospital bills. If someone you love develops cancer, you worry about the cancer and not the treatment costs. It’s a safety net available to everyone. What is wicked or Orwellian or Hitleresque about this? In the end, it can only be that people are protesting at their money going to fund other people. Think about how very, very wicked that is: rather people die than help your neighbour.
American history and ideology interests me a great deal. It always has. I think it can sometimes be flawed (just like the NHS!) but in general, I actually like the idealism of America. Tell me what is idealistic or egalitarian or American about refusing to help those who need it.
Finally, I also did a tax comparison for UK, Spain and the US on my salary (adjusted for ₤ and $):
Spain: 22.35% (all taxes, including healthcare)
UK: 22% (National Insurance, which partly funds the NHS, is a smaller variable cost based on earnings)
US: 25%
Brits were baffled. People were genuinely mystified, even hurt, that (some) Americans had turned on us so quickly. The British embassy said that it would ‘quietly correct erroneous reporting’, which came as little comfort. And then came the anger: the Twitter # tags. (welovetheNHS!), Facebook groups, newspaper debates, blogs, the repelling of wankerface Tories trying to paint our healthcare as woefully inadequate. Why would Americans believe this claptrap, people ask?
Of course, very few Americans believe this rubbish. You Americans here on my LJ are my friends because you’re not these hatred-spewing, fact-phobic imbeciles. And if you do have quibbles about socialised healthcare, you debate it. You don't Godwin yourself by comparing Obama to Hitler. However, I am going to write about this and set some things straight because it’s the right thing to do. I am not debating the ins and outs of Obama's healthcare plan (because in truth, I don't know the ins and outs of it), but what I will do is explain Why The NHS is Not a Bad Thing.
First off: prescriptions on the NHS. All prescriptions are at a set price, which admittedly can sometimes work against you (your chemist will usually advise if buying over the counter is cheaper). The set price is ₤7.20 per item in England, ₤4 in Scotland. You pay this for anything from an inhaler to medicine for the most rare conditions. In Wales, by the way, prescriptions cost a big fat 0.
But what about the cost to the NHS itself? Drugs companies certainly don’t charge them ₤0 for their precious pills. Being a nosy sort, I used to enjoy flicking through the drugs index on idle afternoons whilst working at the Mental Health Unit. I remember how surprised I was when I saw the price listings for a 28-day course of something such as Paroxetine: over ₤300. That’s ₤293 cost absorbed by the NHS each month you are on those pills, the full ₤300 if you’re on low income or unemployed. Or Welsh.
This is socialised healthcare.
I have no time for the drugs companies and their strangehold upon healthcare. When I was working in the...*shudder* bowel clinic, the secretaries there talked excitedly of Friday lunch. Friday lunch was laid on by a drugs company every single week – an ostentatious buffet on hospital grounds to say ‘thank you’ and build up a partnership with the consultants. The one I worked for would pointedly refuse to even enter the room during that hour, every week. He would not be bought. He would not be bribed. He would not put his own personal interests (and wealth) above the care of his patients.
This is socialised healthcare.
But what about Spain? Well, Spanish healthcare is ranked higher in WHO than the UK and the US. Let me tell you about it: I take Omeprazole (at 2 euros for a month’s supply!) for chronic acid reflux. One fine day a few months ago, I get to work and vomit blood. I go to the doctor that morning (I am seen within the hour, for free). I am referred to the hospital and sent to triage (free). I have bloods taken (free), x-rays (free), a gastroscopy (free) and I am given a written report (free) and medicines (free!)
This was at a time when I had been very silly with money and didn’t have much in the bank. I would not have been able to be seen even if the cost were 50 euros.
There was a very sick American girl I talked with there (they gave a tentative diagnosis of Crohn’s) who panicked throughout because she was having all these tests, consultations and was being prescribed medicine, but of course she wasn’t a Spanish resident and didn’t have European health insurance. Perhaps she should just forget the treatment and get a flight home to America so she’d be covered by her insurance there?
No need to panic; she paid fourteen euros. She was disbelieving: ‘It would cost me more to be seen at home!’
What is the alternative? Refuse care to her on the grounds of money? The consultants were not interested in her nationality; they rushed her through because they were concerned at her tests.
This is social healthcare.
Back in 2006, my father suffered his first major illness – a stroke. My mum phoned me at work (which just happened to be the hospital where he was admitted) and told me he had fallen and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital. I tore down the stairs and into A&E (ER for Americans) where he was being treated. The care was compassionate, quick, understanding. I was a nervous wreck, my sister crying, my father scared. There was no third-world pushing him to the back of the queue. There was no refusal to treat a pensioner on the grounds that it would cost the NHS too much.
When he was diagnosed with cancer, the consultant asked for us to come in and see him. My family were taken to a private room and had the news broken gently to us. The consultant told us how sorry he was, that he was there to answer any questions, that he would do his best. And he did. I cannot tell you how sensitive and yet strong that consultant is, how much he cares about his patients. Every worried phone call, every bedside question – he was there to answer.
In the UK, cancer is subject to a two-week rule: if you are suspected of cancer, you must be seen by a consultant within two weeks at the absolute maximum. My father was seen within a day. He was operated on within the week.
This year, my father had a heart attack. He also needs an operation for cataracts. This is a man, terminally ill, over sixty. Not once has the NHS suggested he should just let it all go. Not once has there been a quibble about the cost. Oh yes, he had his cataracts operation delayed: not because it wasn’t worth it, but because they were worried about the stress anaesthetic would have on his heart.
What does it do to the psyche in these moments to worry about the cost? Will the insurance company cover this? What if they want to take x-rays? What about the excess?
WHY would these questions ever be appropriate at these times? Why would any society ever even consider this normal?
These moments in hospitals can be humanity at its most broken. I have heard gut-wrenching screaming coming from emergencies when working there. You never think about the cost of life beginning or ending here. You just think, ‘God, please let them be all right.’
Surely that’s the way it should be? It makes me want to cry, to think of ordinary, decent people crippled under the weight of propaganda by these heartless, grasping companies. We’re all used to seeing greedy business riding roughshod over humanity, but this is a matter of life and death. I feel like shaking those morons protesting at Obama daring to consider healthcare a right. I absolutely cannot fathom it.
The Guardian is my favourite online paper not just for the articles, but because of the wonderfully trollish (and surprisingly intolerant) debate that springs up there each day. When the right-wingers trotted out the stories of death panels and older people being killed off and What if Stephen Hawking were British? (lulz), people banded together. Comment after comment after comment: Don’t knock this. The NHS is one of the few things that we’re proud of. Really, why wouldn’t we be? This is progress. This is society doing the right thing.
If you don’t like socialised healthcare, there is always the alternative of private medicine: you can opt for private treatment in any country. Socialised healthcare just means that you will never have to sell up your house to pay hospital bills. If someone you love develops cancer, you worry about the cancer and not the treatment costs. It’s a safety net available to everyone. What is wicked or Orwellian or Hitleresque about this? In the end, it can only be that people are protesting at their money going to fund other people. Think about how very, very wicked that is: rather people die than help your neighbour.
American history and ideology interests me a great deal. It always has. I think it can sometimes be flawed (just like the NHS!) but in general, I actually like the idealism of America. Tell me what is idealistic or egalitarian or American about refusing to help those who need it.
Finally, I also did a tax comparison for UK, Spain and the US on my salary (adjusted for ₤ and $):
Spain: 22.35% (all taxes, including healthcare)
UK: 22% (National Insurance, which partly funds the NHS, is a smaller variable cost based on earnings)
US: 25%
