As you know, I don't often find the time to blog these days but the debate about health care reform that rages in the US and simmers in the UK has finally overcome my natural lethargy. This brilliant little animated video spells out in terms that are difficult to argue with why the United States should provide universal health care that is funded by taxation and not by greedy, self-serving insurance companies. When you stand at the top of the Empire State Building in NYC some of the most lavish buildings you can see are owned by insurance companies, which should be telling us something!
These companies and their right-wing supporters have a lot to lose if Obama is successful: hence the vitriol and scare-mongering that is coming forth just now. America makes a big thing of its Christian values, but many US citizens apparently don't see that failing to provide large chunks of the population with health care is inconsistent with this.
On this side of the Atlantic, I am pleased to see that the debate is showing up major fault lines in Cameron's façade of the new "caring, sharing" Conservative Party. The Tories' commitment to the British NHS has been shown to be a total sham, but I don't know if this will be enough, in itself, to lose them the next election, unfortunately! Labour's increasing attempts to part-privatise the NHS in recent years have been shameful, and a genuine commitment to a publicly funded system, free of the need to pander to the demands of shareholders in private companies, might allow voters in the next election to chose a party that appreciates the true values upon which the NHS is based.
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