Stephen Hawking Defends UK’s ‘Orwellian’ Healthcare
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Daniel Bates of The Daily Mail writes:
Professor Stephen Hawking has spoken out in defence of the NHS after high-level U.S. politicians have branded the National Health Service ‘evil’ and ‘Orwellian.’
The British professor, who has suffered from Lou Gehrig’s disease for 40 years, insisted that he ‘would not be here’ were it not for the NHS.
He spoke after an editorial in Investor’s Business Daily, a national financial newspaper in the U.S. that also runs articles by columnists on the Left and the Right, launched a misinformed attack on the NHS.
The rest of the article is interesting on its own, but especially worth a look are its responding comments — for and against — generated by readers in the US and the UK. However you may feel about it, government-provided health care is definitely a heated issue on both sides of the pond these days.
I don’t think there’s any question that we’re due for some sort of reform, but a cure-all course seems to remain unclear. If it were up to you, how would you fix the system?
3 Comments
the oracle
August 12th, 2009
at 6:32pm
After seeing the results of, and speaking to people covered by, the Canadian plan, I vote for that one. Better care, and cheaper than what we spend here per capita, with full coverage.
Over the course of my life, I have dropped the idea that everything is better in the U.S.A;, other countries sometimes get things better, Canada has gotten health coverage better.
Robert Glen Fogarty
August 13th, 2009
at 11:30am
When I was in Scotland a few years back, I came down with strep throat. I wound up paying a very modest fee (something amounting to a little more than $10) for the visit to the doctor; they could tell by my outrageous accent that I wasn’t from around those parts or it would have been free! Scot free! (Sorry.)
Getting the antibiotic prescription filled was also completely reasonable. How dare a country let people walk around with their arms and legs intact along with their health! I’ve always been under the impression that it was a “one or the other” kind of deal.
Garrett W.
August 13th, 2009
at 1:16pm
Check out John Stossel’s analysis of our healthcare.