Is public healthcare in the UK as sick as rightwing America claims?

[oldironside]

Over the last few weeks I've been puzzled by some of the claims being made about the British NHS. This link does something to address these.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/11/nhs-sick-healthcare-reform

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. Long discussion in comments by actual NHS clients...

...from yesterday here courtesy of the Crooked Timber blog. It's an academic blog with a fair-sized UK readership, so there's a good discussion based on experience by people who can write, and it's nearly 100% troll-free.

Good read.

[drm604]

2. It managed not to kill Stephen Hawking.

Regardless of what Investor's Business Daily may say.

[iverglas]

4. this really is a great point

Diversity is important to species survival.

Widely available healthcare increases diversity within our species. Some individuals survive who might not be the "fittest" in purely physical terms, are the fittest in other ways, for other purposes.

Without diversity, and the healthcare that makes it more possible, we might be missing individuals like Stephen Hawkings. ;)

[stray cat]

3. just sick like most health care systems that are trying to control costs

[LeftishBrit]

5. Thanks - was planning to post this myself!

As I keep saying, if our NHS were that bad, why is our life expectancy higher than that of the USA - and why do all the countries ahead of us have some form of universal health care?