How dare USAmerican republicans slag off the NHS ....

Last night and this morning I was stirred to a rare state of outrage (it takes a lot to get me close to incandescent) but some of the banners being carried by some Re/Publicans lit my blue touchpaper. So it was therapeutic to read an article that said a lot of things that I wanted to say in response: Thank heaven for the NHS | Michele Hanson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk In particular this captured the heart of it (as I come from a poor family): "It's not perfect, no organisation of that size could be, it's bound to make some mistakes, but I don't know where I'd be without it. Probably dead. I have a thyroid condition, and every day for the last 30 years I've had free medication, like thousands of others with ongoing conditions: diabetes, epilepsy, cancer and many others. What happens to the 43 million people in the US who can't afford to pay for such things? Must they live a miserable, painful, debilitated life and die early?"
So the clearly-unthought out guy carrying a placard claiming by implication that for the USA to have a European style medical care system would mean the elderly would be left to die ... well words almost fail me. One I'm very cross that he seemed to think we were practising euthanasia of the wickedest kind; two, I'm outraged that he seems to have forgotten that almost the equivalent number of people in the USA to the number of adults in England are in effect facing that: they are uninsured and the benefits he is presumably hoping for do not extend to them; presumably they hope for charity, go into massive debt or simply have a shorter life expectancy simply because their life circumstances are not as favoured as his. It is the hypocrisy and double standards of the protest which are galling.

Then there was the woman at one meeting who seemed to think that "socialised" health care was communism. The implication seemed to be that 'socialised' not only sounds like but is like 'socialist' which means tyranny. What do these people think is happening in terms of the systems of government of their allies?

Final story. When we had some USAmerican friends to stay a few years back, one of them developed a minor injury, went to a local out-patients' centre, and was treated. She was delighted that no-one asked her for a medical insurance card/papers. She was just treated. That's how it should be. I don't think a country is properly civilised if healthcare is not free or close to it at point of delivery. (Oh and don't get me started on the distortions that profit bring to medical care: unnecessary treatments; litigation-driven inflation ...)