Healthcare Access

Here is an excellent letter regarding healthcare in Great Britain which some people in the USA like to discount as being ineffective and call it socialism etc. Strange to me that Medicare received by seniors is not socialism but health care for all would be. Anyway, here is a letter for your consideration.
--------------------------

"I write as a British citizen and supporter of my country's National Health Service because I am appalled by the lies that have been spread about the service in America.

Whilst it is far from perfect, the overwhelming majority of Britons would agree that the NHS provides a high-quality service.

In America, our health care system is deemed "socialist," but Britain is a capitalist society like any other in the West. The difference is that we do not feel something as basic as health care should be subject to market forces. The scaremongering by America's right about euthanasia for the elderly and "death panels" for disabled children is dangerous and absurd.

The reality in Britain is that elderly patients and parents of disabled children are free from the constant worry that their insurance won't cover the next round of treatment. They can rely on the state to provide.

Whilst the U.S. right wheels on eccentric conservatives such as Member of Parliament Daniel Hannan to denigrate our public health care, most of Europe looks on in incomprehension. To Europeans, it is obvious that free health care is the only fair system. We are just waiting for the world's largest superpower to catch up.

JOANNA HOWARD

Sheffield, Great Britain

------------------------

So wake up America. Do the right thing. Do not let the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry run our lives.