UltimateHoboW/Shotgun
02-19-2012, 12:27 AM
http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/17/as-obama-pushes-new-regulations-uk-eyes-privatizing-its-health-care/
Filmmaker Michael Moore glorified the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in his 2007 documentary ”Sicko,” making a cult film argument that socialized medicine works. But Prime Minister David Cameron, the Tory MP who heads a coalition government in England, is apparently not a Moore fan: He is working to partially privatize the NHS, beginning a massive outsourcing of medical services to private health care providers throughout the U.K.
Britain’s media, in particular the Washington Post–Huffington Post hybrid The Guardian, is publishing near-panic-attacks alerts daily about the conservative plan, which comes as the British government scales back on entitlement spending, hoping to avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown.
But in the United States, left-wing enthusiasts of socialized medicine don’t seem bothered at the loss of a role model. Many won’t even acknowledge it.
“I handle media and public relations for the Catholic Health Association,” Fred Caesar told The Daily Caller. “We will pass on commenting.” Caesar is special assistant to the president of the CHA, a vocal advocate of President Obama’s health care overhaul.
Major U.S. media are also ignoring the story. As Cameron’s own health reform bill gathers momentum and heads for a vote in Parliament, online searches show no coverage at all of Britain’s move in The Washington Post or The New York Times.
‘Taken out and shot’
Contrast this with U.K. media, which is pressuring Cameron to drop his plans. Major medical societies — including the Royal College of General Practitioners — and the rest of Britain’s medical establishment is shouting for Cameron to cease and desist.
The British public has a fear of privatization founded on the idea that doctors “might become dependent on advice from powerful private health companies,” and that the free-market competition laws could replace “public service principles” as the NHS’s central operating principle, The Guardian reported this week. (RELATED: Full coverage of the US Affordable Care Act)
Even the Times of London, a liberal broadsheet that is still normally restrained in its commentary, opined that Cameron’s health secretary Andrew Lansley should be “taken out and shot” for moving the bill through the House of Commons.
Sally Pipes, an American health policy expert who leads the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, told TheDC that President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will likely ignore any changes in U.K. health policy. Their allies in the U.S. media and public policy establishment, she said, would follow suit.
“They are ideologues,” Pipes said. “They don’t care whether the system really works or not. They have an ideological goal in mind.”
Pipes notes that the system of socialized medicine in the U.K., and a similar one in Canada, is viable only for routine visits to the doctor, but not for chronic illnesses like cancer or kidney disease. A few years ago in Canada, she said, her own mother could not get a simple colonoscopy scheduled for several months, despite searing abdominal pain.
When Pipes’ mother started bleeding, she was rushed to the emergency room and finally given the colonoscopy — which indicated that she had colorectal cancer. It was too late for treatment at that point, though, and she died shortly thereafter.
“They keep down costs by rationing medicine and medical services,” Pipes explained.
UK eyes privatizing its health care
Filmmaker Michael Moore glorified the United Kingdom’s National Health Service in his 2007 documentary ”Sicko,” making a cult film argument that socialized medicine works. But Prime Minister David Cameron, the Tory MP who heads a coalition government in England, is apparently not a Moore fan: He is working to partially privatize the NHS, beginning a massive outsourcing of medical services to private health care providers throughout the U.K.
Britain’s media, in particular the Washington Post–Huffington Post hybrid The Guardian, is publishing near-panic-attacks alerts daily about the conservative plan, which comes as the British government scales back on entitlement spending, hoping to avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown.
But in the United States, left-wing enthusiasts of socialized medicine don’t seem bothered at the loss of a role model. Many won’t even acknowledge it.
“I handle media and public relations for the Catholic Health Association,” Fred Caesar told The Daily Caller. “We will pass on commenting.” Caesar is special assistant to the president of the CHA, a vocal advocate of President Obama’s health care overhaul.
Major U.S. media are also ignoring the story. As Cameron’s own health reform bill gathers momentum and heads for a vote in Parliament, online searches show no coverage at all of Britain’s move in The Washington Post or The New York Times.
‘Taken out and shot’
Contrast this with U.K. media, which is pressuring Cameron to drop his plans. Major medical societies — including the Royal College of General Practitioners — and the rest of Britain’s medical establishment is shouting for Cameron to cease and desist.
The British public has a fear of privatization founded on the idea that doctors “might become dependent on advice from powerful private health companies,” and that the free-market competition laws could replace “public service principles” as the NHS’s central operating principle, The Guardian reported this week. (RELATED: Full coverage of the US Affordable Care Act)
Even the Times of London, a liberal broadsheet that is still normally restrained in its commentary, opined that Cameron’s health secretary Andrew Lansley should be “taken out and shot” for moving the bill through the House of Commons.
Sally Pipes, an American health policy expert who leads the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, told TheDC that President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will likely ignore any changes in U.K. health policy. Their allies in the U.S. media and public policy establishment, she said, would follow suit.
“They are ideologues,” Pipes said. “They don’t care whether the system really works or not. They have an ideological goal in mind.”
Pipes notes that the system of socialized medicine in the U.K., and a similar one in Canada, is viable only for routine visits to the doctor, but not for chronic illnesses like cancer or kidney disease. A few years ago in Canada, she said, her own mother could not get a simple colonoscopy scheduled for several months, despite searing abdominal pain.
When Pipes’ mother started bleeding, she was rushed to the emergency room and finally given the colonoscopy — which indicated that she had colorectal cancer. It was too late for treatment at that point, though, and she died shortly thereafter.
“They keep down costs by rationing medicine and medical services,” Pipes explained.
UK eyes privatizing its health care