I'd like to make a case for socialized healthcare, as a person who's been part of a society that has it for my entire life. I believe in it, I've seen it, used it, been part of it, and now I'd like to talk about it. I'll dive right in.
One of the main reasons many US citizens are skeptical about socialized healthcare is its cost to the taxpayer. Yet Americans, currently, pay, per person, the highest prices in developed nations for healthcare.
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The American government also spend more
per capita on healthcare than any other developed nation.
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You would think therefore that American healthcare would rate among the world's best. The contrary is actually true. According to a report by the Commonwealth Fund based on findings by an international panel of experts from the World Health Organization, the US ranks among the lowest in terms of quality of care, access, efficiency and equity, while the NHS, the socialized healthcare system in the UK, was placed at the very top of the list -- the best health service in the world. This rating has been made possible by some of the cheapest taxpayer costs per capita in the world, free prescriptions for every single UK citizen regardless of circumstance, free eyecare at every stage except for the purchase of certain upmarket focal frames and free treatment in both hospitals and local surgeries at the point of contact. Also note that in comparing the lower-middle class and poorest of citizens, Uk citizens are actually given more tax exemptions and tax free earnings (something the lowest earners in the US do not benefit from, as they are taxed 10%).
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While many Americans also shy away from the idea of socialized healthcare due to horror stories such as those of 'death panels', patients waiting on ridiculous waiting lists for emergency procedures and lying in lobbies for hours with blood coming out their ears, these stories are most often entirely fabricated. AS Dr Alan Maryon-Davis, President of the UK Faculty of Public Health states "The horrific thing about the American system is that there are tens of millions of people without health insurance. We spend less on health in terms of GDP than America but if you look at health indices, especially for life expectancy, we generally have better figures than they do in America."
American pro-privitization lobbyists also often argue that many UK citizens are against the NHS. In fact, in British Future's latest ''State of the Nation'' report,
here, an overwhelming majority of Britons of all classes and colours indicated that the NHS is the one thing above all that makes them most proud to be British. The NHS was formed from the calling of the British people for more affordable healthcare in a time when only the richest could really afford it (I remember my father telling me that my grandfather avoided the doctor because it cost too much money to go. He died of cancer, diagnosed at stage three when it was already in several of his internal organs -- an indirect result of his inability to pay). The NHS is a source of immense national pride here in the UK for these very reasons; it gives access to all people, regardless of financial ability.
Finally, as a counter to claims that the NHS' procedures are outdated or obsolete and its doctors undereducated and employed on the basis of necessity rather than academic achievement, the NHS has in fact one of the highest standards for employment of any UK institution; UK medical schools Oxford and Cambridge Universities are placed 2nd and 3rd in the world for medicine by topuniversities.com, second only to Harvard overall in 2013, while in the 2014 rankings UK University ''Imperial College London'' joins the top four along with Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. The Times World Ranking puts Oxford medical in the number one spot in the world, and most graduates remain in the UK. The NHS has also recieved funding to
expand its already substantial research and development facilities in what is set to make it arguably the most advanced, forward moving medical research body of any country in the world.
Socialized medicine can and does work. I can testify personally to it.
Also note below a doctored version of the above report, presumably by those against the NHS. The original above, is from the Independent.
