USA vs. NHS

In the eyes of its supporters, the American medical system can do no wrong, but it's evidently been powerless to prevent a severe outbreak of foaming at the mouth in and around the Republican Party. I'm not sure why they're picking on the NHS: Canada is a lot closer at hand and has a much more state-dominated health system -- private care is essentially illegal in Canada, apart from dentistry and eyecare, which it certainly isn't in the UK. (Maybe Republicans don't know where Canada and Europe are located in relation to the US. A Spanish colleague of mine once recounted how he had pitched up in St Louis as a student. One of his hosts asked him how long it had taken to drive from Spain to Missouri).

But I digress. Anyway, there's been a lot of humour to be had in the attacks on the NHS. One of my favourites so far has been the broadcaster Sean Hannity, who talked about a man in Lancashire who couldn't find an NHS dentist and decided to reattach a crown using Superglue. "If Obama gets his way" said Hannity, "better stock up on Superglue". It's possible that Hannity doesn't know that you can get private dental care in the UK -- i.e. that you have a choice, which is what the Republicans are supposedly fighting for -- but I think it's much more likely that he chose to conceal that fact from his audience.

It's unfortunate that it's come to this, because if you look beyond the imbecilic ravings of Hannity (and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Mark Steyn, to name just a few), there are some sensible voices to be heard on the US right. David Frum (a former George Bush speechwriter, but just this once we won't hold that against him) had an excellent piece in The Times at the end of last week, though unfortunately it's vanished from their website. He noted that the US Government already spends as high a proportion of GDP on health as countries like Canada and the UK do; what drives the overall proportion of US GDP dedicated to health to such extraordinary levels is the amount spent by the private sector, mostly financed through insurance. Frum argues that Government health spending is growing unsustainably fast. His take on the situation is that a lot of the opposition to the Obama plans is coming from senior citizens, who are major recipients of Government health funds and who fear that the Obama plan will direct some of the money away from them. Hence the scare stories about death panels, drug rationing and so on. It's our old friends the grey greedies again, in their US incarnation.

Frum may be right about a lot of this, but I don't think his dispassionate analysis has much in common with the mob protests that are taking place every day across the US. For example, Frum argues that nobody is ever denied treatment at emergency rooms. Hospitals simply add the costs for those who can't or won't pay onto the bills of those who do. This would undoubtedly be news to one redneck I saw last week, screaming into the camera that "these people want their healthcare paid for by those of us who work for a living". Sounds like that's already happening, Bubba.

Ultimately I guess it's none of our business if the US wants to bankrupt itself to pay for healthcare that in terms of measurable outcomes is no better than that in the rest of the world. I just wish they hadn't dragged us into the debate.

FOOTNOTE: an interesting (racial) angle on the US health care debate here.