By
Dwight Swanson
They didn't like it back then
The debate over national health coverage in the US drags the Editor in by virtue of the use of the UK system for horror stories that are meant to put people off universal health care. The Right Wing politicians and media and the health insurers cite examples of terrible failures of the system, and present them as the norm. They also present the costs to taxpayers in astronomical numbers.
As an American who has lived under both systems, I can say something about this.
Firstly, one grows weary of the American Right’s penchant to rise to the bait whenever the word ‘socialised medicine’ is used. The red flag of ‘Socialism’, meaning Communism, is anachronistic and misplaced. The Cold War is over! And the fact of limited social unrest over the past 60 years is related to the fact that the countries of Europe introduced certain social structures in response to the Marxist Socialist threat, such as health coverage. Europeans cannot understand the readiness of US citizens to allow people to go without health care.
Besides this, the US has gone some of the same way along this road. For instance, how many Americans are willing to give up their Social Security pensions? That is socialised retirement benefit. And consider, as one of my students has pointed out, that Americans accept socialised police and fire services! One doesn’t have to show one’s insurance before water is poured on your house in event of a fire; the police don’t ask for your insurance papers before hunting the murderer of your family member. ‘Socialised’ health care works along these lines. It is the view of a society that access to care when ill or injured should be available to every one of its citizens, regardless of age, income, or social status.
Secondly, there is no denying that there are failures in the British NHS. The British public do not allow them to go unreported! But, no one wants to do away with the NHS. It maintains high support; people want a better NHS, not its abolition.
There are horror stories in the American non-system, too, which somehow never make it onto the reports. When we lived in the US thirty years ago we could not afford adequate health insurance, so carried only casualty. We prayed that nothing serious would come up. No, we gambled that no serious disease would hit us in our 20s and 30s. It is only worse for our children’s generation. Or, a self-employed nephew whose insurance premiums would leave nothing left over at the end of the month, and he would still have to pay the first $1000 on any treatment. Or, a physician friend who has left medicine because he is required to treat un-insured patients, but no insurer or the government pays him for treating them (he now offers his services to the developing world). Or, a report in one of today’s British papers about an open air free clinic in Virginia, with people laying on trolleys in the rain. I’ll take the British horror stories over the American stories. They are, truly, an exception.
Thirdly, the cost of health care is a problem in any system. As a new treatment becomes available, it is surely the right of the ill to be given that treatment. The improvements in treatment come at a cost—of machinery and drugs. That is why insurance premiums in the US are so high. And why the NHS budget is always strained. However, the American system leaves the weight to bear on individual people or companies, so only those in secure and well-paying jobs in well-established companies can afford good health care (but those well-established companies are not so secure right now, are they…). National health systems, of which the UK is but one of many models in use across Europe, spread the burden—and, to be sure, less of the money goes to the insurance companies, and more to the health providers.
The question is, then, what is the fairest way to make very expensive health care available? It will cost, one way or another. My health insurance costs via taxation are less than Americans pay in Social Security. If my total taxation is higher (and I don’t know if it is), it is a price I am willing to pay for the sake of the system. But I will bet that my total taxation package is less than the average American tax demand plus medical insurance by a significant amount. And I pay a mortgage
and have some left over.
Finally, a word from a Christian viewpoint. It is difficult to understand why Christians of any political persuasion would oppose a proposal to provide health care to the 40 million children below the poverty line, or the growing retired population with only Social Security income to live on (as opposed to the truly horrific provisions of Medicare/Medicaid, which is a parody of a national health system).
Christians have pioneered health provision wherever they have gone, for centuries. Christian hospitals are a staple of mission work all over the world. Yet, the very people who are willing to go and build the hospitals for the developing world seem unwilling to do the same at home. A notable aspect of Jesus’ ministry, recorded in all the Gospels, was his healing ministry; for which he never required prior conversion or subsequent church membership. The healing of diseases was a basic sign of the presence of the kingdom of God. And John the Elder asks the question in 1 John 3, ‘How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?’
As another of my students said, ‘It’s a no-brainer.’
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