British surgeon tells NPR end-of-life smears of NHS are "the most ludicrous thing I've heard"
August 18, 2009 12:43 pm ET
From the August 18 broadcast of NPR's Morning Edition:
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As it is, I doubt that any of the Teabagging Troglodytes ever listen to NPR... it's too "Librul".
And would it make any difference, really? The morons who are standing outside the town hall meetings brandishing their guns are not there to become better informed, I assure you.
I don't know about how they treat the end-of-life in Britain, but that show(which was not about the GHS at all, and every mention was incedental) highlighted for me that they have some serious problems in their system.
You're gonna have to provide a reference for that my friend.
Am not sure if the gov't was footing all or part of the bill for his feed, including the chocolate, which totalled a great deal more than $14K/yr all-told. If memory serves, they were paying all of that, plus everything else, as the guy was not earning a living in any way whatsoever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkvdEoM4Uqs
This excerpt shows a lady from the US. I'm not sure if there were more people featured, but I do know that the NHS doesn't pay for food, just healthcare (I'm from the UK). If the person you mentioned was from the UK there is no way he would get his food paid on the NHS under any circumstances, unless he was in hospital (and they certainly would feed him that amount there).
If he lived in long term, residential care an amount would be deducted from his income to pay for his food but it seems unlikely that anyone living in care would get to that weight.
Here's a link to page page that talks about the standard treatments available on the NHS.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/obesity.htm
I'm beginning to think that a portion of US citizens are related to the White Queen in Alice in Wonderland and have a policy of believing 'as many as six impossible things before breakfast'.
Prior to the 2000 Healthcare reform in the UK, the NHS was underfunded which caused many of the horror stories that the right wing is spouting off as "proof" that the UK system doesn't work.
Today, spending has increased to $181B (US) annually (nearly double the spending) and that has fixed the long waits, deferred services, etc.
With a population of 60 million people, the UK spends roughly $3,016/per person.
If we could be as efficient as the UK and implement a similar system, with 300 millionpeople, we would spend $905 Billion... Let's round up and say that the US spends $1 Trillion or $3,333 per person, slightly more than the UK... but hey they've been doing this for 60 years.
Currently we spend roughly $2.4 trillion annually in health care, with projections that are crazy scary in the next decade.
This is how far out of whack we are with the UK. They are able to provide everyone in their country with quality health care for half the cost. And somehow the right wing is intent on villifying and demonizing them. We should be learning from them!
As a nation, we need to get our act together...
We should be embarassed by how this nation treats our own.
No matter how much the lie about the UK system (or Canada Sweden etc), the supposed scary story from "socialized medicine" is going to be as scary as the American reality...