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Following my post yesterday about IBD's phenomenal degree of wrong, today I find this from the Guardian newspaper. It appears that while at first people who work in the NHS/HMG/Brits generally started off amused by the disinformation about the NHS being spread by right-wing pundits and their bestest friends in the US, they/we are now becoming annoyed.
Partially I can't help but feel that this is because of the moment of gob-smacked-ness one feels when faced with someone telling a bare-faced lie is passing. There are right-wingers I respect – not very many, but some – and they wouldn't as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
melodyclark put it in comments to yesterday's post, use "anything they think might stick whether it's a lie or not." That these propagandists are doing so, means that their arguments are as hollow as a hollow thing which has been emptied out and then scraped bare.
Even now, the comment about Stephen Hawking I complained about yesterday has not been properly corrected – they acknowledge that he lives in the UK, but the point about his living in the UK was not the only thing they said. They implied – straight out said – that had he been British he'd be dead. As he is British and he is not dead, that part of their argument falls and crashes like a ton of bricks onto a glasshouse.
But it's not the only bollocks. As the Guardian's article above points out, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) does not operate in the way that the editorial says that it does. NICE is more like the FDA in that it licences drugs for use in the NHS, and only one of the criteria they use is cost. Even its traducers in the UK do not claim otherwise.
There is one comforting thing, though. In the comments to quite a few bloggers taking the piss out of IBD, there is the odd resident of the UK saying something along the lines of, "Er…I used the NHS and they were OK. Really." If sometimes they don't get you specialist advice on something that you have quite as fast as you would like, or have a somewhat labyrinthine system in place for something (Waltham Forest NHS Trust I'm looking at your mysterious blood test arrangements) that's all in the scheme of things – and you can always complain.
I do. My biggest complaint is that mental health is the Cinderella of health care. All the staff I've ever dealt with have been lovely – but it's obvious there's simply no money there. My doctor's quote still makes me grin, "It's a good thing you don't need to be sectioned," by which he meant, need an acute bed in a psychiatric ward "there's waiting list of 21." But despite its inadequacies it gets me the drugs I need, a regular appointment with both a psychiatrist and a counsellor, and keeps me at work collecting my pay.
I love the NHS – I don't know how much my drugs would cost if I had to pay for them, or even co-pay. My mother (three operations and counting, needing daily care which she gets free) loves the NHS. My brother (non-urgent operation on his hand for which he waited a fairly reasonable three months) loves the NHS. And it pisses me off when people tell lies about it.
Partially I can't help but feel that this is because of the moment of gob-smacked-ness one feels when faced with someone telling a bare-faced lie is passing. There are right-wingers I respect – not very many, but some – and they wouldn't as
melodyclark put it in comments to yesterday's post, use "anything they think might stick whether it's a lie or not." That these propagandists are doing so, means that their arguments are as hollow as a hollow thing which has been emptied out and then scraped bare.Even now, the comment about Stephen Hawking I complained about yesterday has not been properly corrected – they acknowledge that he lives in the UK, but the point about his living in the UK was not the only thing they said. They implied – straight out said – that had he been British he'd be dead. As he is British and he is not dead, that part of their argument falls and crashes like a ton of bricks onto a glasshouse.
But it's not the only bollocks. As the Guardian's article above points out, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) does not operate in the way that the editorial says that it does. NICE is more like the FDA in that it licences drugs for use in the NHS, and only one of the criteria they use is cost. Even its traducers in the UK do not claim otherwise.
There is one comforting thing, though. In the comments to quite a few bloggers taking the piss out of IBD, there is the odd resident of the UK saying something along the lines of, "Er…I used the NHS and they were OK. Really." If sometimes they don't get you specialist advice on something that you have quite as fast as you would like, or have a somewhat labyrinthine system in place for something (Waltham Forest NHS Trust I'm looking at your mysterious blood test arrangements) that's all in the scheme of things – and you can always complain.
I do. My biggest complaint is that mental health is the Cinderella of health care. All the staff I've ever dealt with have been lovely – but it's obvious there's simply no money there. My doctor's quote still makes me grin, "It's a good thing you don't need to be sectioned," by which he meant, need an acute bed in a psychiatric ward "there's waiting list of 21." But despite its inadequacies it gets me the drugs I need, a regular appointment with both a psychiatrist and a counsellor, and keeps me at work collecting my pay.
I love the NHS – I don't know how much my drugs would cost if I had to pay for them, or even co-pay. My mother (three operations and counting, needing daily care which she gets free) loves the NHS. My brother (non-urgent operation on his hand for which he waited a fairly reasonable three months) loves the NHS. And it pisses me off when people tell lies about it.
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I think that people who like their health insurance are either rich, and able to afford the best plans, or are healthy enough that they only ever use it for routine care.
I just bought a medication a couple of weeks ago that cost me $60. There were only 30 pills in the bottle - I paid $2 a pill. The joke? That $60 was my copay. I am insured.*
* For almost $300 a month for a single person, pre-existing conditions not covered of course. I make about $600 a month because I'm a full-time student.
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It's the fact that they don't cover pre-existing conditions which is the real kicker.
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"I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/aug/12/birthers-stephen-hawking-paul-rowen
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frankly, i can't wait. my parents are paying for my health insurance policy right now because i can't afford it and if it were left up to me, i'd probably just go without. it costs $150 per month and there is a $5,000 deductible. so for $150 a month, you can buy the privilege of having to pay for a further $5,000 in medical expenses every year before the insurance company starts to pay for it. and even when you have met the deductible and they start to pay for your expenses, they aren't going to pay for 100% of them. in my case, i would still have to pay something like 30% of my medical expenses. so the only real value i get out of this private insurance plan is the ability to pay $25 to see the doctor or get a prescription rather than hundreds. and of course this doesn't cover dental care, so this is all in addition to the $45 per month i pay for dental coverage.
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When I listen to the out and out lies told by the right wing on this issue, I am furious. The worst of this is led by many in the Christian right. Tonight I watch one so called Christian on the news say that if we would all live a "Christian lifestyle" we wouldn't need health care at all.
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That's so ridiculous it barely deserves an answer. Let's see how well her Christianity prevents her being hit by a truck.
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I... really don't GET what the right wing has against national health care. I just... gah. I mean I understand that the insurance companies are against it, and I get that some right wing muckety-mucks have a stake in defeating it (on account of ties to the insurance companies), but the rank and file? The guy in the street & Jill lunchbox? They're crazy foaming at the mouth out there. Not only do they not understand how national health care works in the UK, they don't know how it works *here*. Did you hear about people freaking out & screaming THE GUMMIT BETTER KEEP ITS HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE??!!!ELEVENTY! *headdesk*
And I further don't get the casting of the UK and Canada as some kind of health care axis of evil. WTF?
I am deeply, deeply embarrassed. And furious. And terrified.
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