Who would have thought that a blog post on minor alterations to culture funding would have made me this week’s cause célèbre? I’m going to stay away from controversial topics this week and instead write about my desire to fully privatise the NHS.
I jest, of course.
But on the subject of private/public healthcare systems, I saw a clip on the Daily Show yesterday of Barack Obama defending his healthcare reform plans.
Arguing against the claim that a public healthcare system would be damaging to private businesses, Obama said:
“People say ‘How can a private company compete against the government?’…They should be able to compete; they do it all the time….If you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine – it’s the post office that’s always having problems.”
Good work, Obama – way to undermine your own campaign!
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At this point, although the debate and spin continue, this bill is essentially dead from an emotional and mandate perspective, even if some version gets passed. Whether it ultimately proves to be of any benefit to society, or a detriment, will take years, if not decades, to appreciate.
This bill, and virtually anything that might be done to improve our healthcare system, involves too much complexity with which we are emotionally motivated to deal. In addition, there are too many factions with entrenched economic and/or financial interests to permit it to become a true health initiative.
There’s been too much arguing about the details. People can not describe in 2 or 3 sentences the conceptual parameters of the effort and what it is supposed to accomplish. Unfortunately, people can describe how they feel about it in 1 or 2 words, and that’s not good. And that’s not to mention the elements who have whipped up hysteria by suggesting, with certainty, what will occur once the final product (which does not yet exist) emerges.
If either side of the debate has to work this hard arguing about something which theoretically should improve the lives of the masses of people, there’s a big problem.
Even more so than how something is done, people are interested in results, not the details. And once again, as is frequently the case with much of human processing, the facts don’t really matter. How people view the world, what they value, and what they want, matters.
And there is nothing collaborative in nature about that. Factor in the strong individualistic American DNA, and this effort is emotionally toast.
Reggie,
I am writing from the UK (where many of us are watching the American debate with interest). Almost everyone in Britain (with the exception of a minority on the libertarian right) are justifiably proud of the NHS.
What upsets us most over here is the way that the British NHS is cited as an example of a failed system of delivering healthcare. Claims that a public health system will result in some kind of backwoods, Soviet-style socialist state, are quite frankly ridiculous. Consider that most of the countries with public health services are also some of the strongest economies in the world…)
I see that some commentators on the American right find stories in the British press about people waiting to see a doctor for three hours after a heart attack (etc)… but you know what? They make the press over here, precisley because it is a rare thing – and everyone here is as shocked and appalled as anyone in the US. True enough, there are problems with the NHS – but I think it’s safe to say that where our system occasionally fails, it is far less damaging to public health then the inbuilt failure of a private system – a system which systematically damages the health of the poor.
I also note that Fox news reports that the British NHS is a breeding ground for terrorists – which would be hilarious on a spoof TV show, but somewhat more worrying given that it is presented as fact on a major news network. (Incidentally, the reason we have so many foreign nationals working in the NHS is not due to a fault in our health service, rather a fault in our education system, I would say. Also, health professionals are paid well in this country, and are held in high esteem, so don’t listen to that.)
But you’re right that the emotional stakes that people have invested one way or another means that you will not see a rational debate on the issue.
It makes me glad that Britain introduced the NHS when it did – because there is no way that a universal healthcare system, like we are accustomed to, would be introduced today.
This is the Fox News piece on terrorists in the NHS – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-JEx-Kfvc