In the debate about healthcare, the right wing have been quick to paint a doom-laden picture of healthcare under the British NHS. The UK's Guardian Newspaper reports today on a push back against the lies that are being spread.
In the Guardian, there is a news report on some of the outlandish claims being made about the NHS, and the response of our own people to it.
"I don't know for sure," said [Chuck] Grassley. "But I've heard several senators say that Ted Kennedy with a brain tumour, being 77 years old as opposed to being 37 years old, if he were in England, would not be treated for his disease, because end of life – when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under those systems."
The degree of misinformation is causing dismay in NHS circles. Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), pointed out that it was utterly false that Kennedy would be left untreated in Britain: "It is neither true nor is it anything you could extrapolate from anything we've ever recommended to the NHS."
Over here, it is a matter of bemusement that you would tolerate what you currently have to put up with.
Defenders of Britain's system point out that the UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US. The World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place. The British Medical Association said a majority of Britain's doctors have consistently supported public provision of healthcare. A spokeswoman said the association's 140,000 members were sceptical about the US approach to medicine: "Doctors and the public here are appalled that there are so many people on the US who don't have proper access to healthcare. It's something we would find very, very shocking."
And a summary linked to this article debunks some of the more outrageous claims. For example:
The claim
In England, anyone over 59 years of age cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed – an anonymously authored, but widely circulated, email, largely sent to older voters
The response
Totally untrue. Growing numbers of patients over 65 with heart conditions are having surgery, including valve repairs and heart bypass surgery, says Professor Peter Weissberg, the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) medical director. For example, the average age at which people have a bypass operation has risen from 58 in 1991 to 66 in 2008.
No excuse for that one. It isn't down to a spun interpretation or a misunderstanding. It is an outright and deliberate lie.
The claim
Government health officials in England have decided that $22,750 (£14,000) is what six months' life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck - Club for Growth
The response
The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) decides whether new drugs represent value for money for the NHS in England and Wales. It replied: "This is a gross misrepresentation of how Nice applies health economics to try and address the central issue: how to allocate healthcare rationally within the context of limited healthcare resources. Nice assesses the cost of a treatment in terms of a cost-utility analysis which takes account of the quality adjusted life year – the amount and quality of extended life it is hoped the patient will gain. The current ceiling is £30,000 but exceptions are made."
You can at least see how that one came about, but again, it is a misrepresentation of the truth. In any event, I would be astonished if your insurance companies are not making exactly the same calculations when deciding what they will fund.
It's not all false. When it comes to cancer care, we do have significantly poorer results that in the USA.
The claim
In the UK, breast cancer survival rates are 11% lower than they are here in the United States – Sue Myrick, a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina
The response
If anything the gap is wider than Myrick says. Breakthrough Breast Cancer cite two recent studies from Lancet Oncology. One says that 83.9% of women in the US diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990-94 lived for at least five years compared to 69.7% in the UK – a 14.2% difference. The second showed that, among women diagnosed with the disease in 2000-02, 90.1% in the States survived for at least five years whereas in England it was 77.8% – a 12.3% gap.
However, that does not necessarily mean that the difference is down to the different funding mechanism. Perhaps Brits are much worse at going for check-ups, which may mean that cancers are often not detected until much later. Generally speaking, when they are diagnosed, the treatment is as thorough as can be.
I will leave the last word to Andrew Neil, a leading journalist and commentator, who has blogged for the BBC on this subject.
The NHS is regularly dismissed by US critics of reform as "socialised medicine". When you tell them there is all-party support for the NHS and that all mainstream right-of-centre parties in Britain and across continental Europe regard the concept of a health service provided collectively for everyone and free at the point of use as not particularly "socialist" -- just a feature of a civilised society on which there is broad consensus on left, right and centre -- they either don't believe you or think you're making it up.
The incredible cost of US health care is breath-taking, whether you're a reformer or anti-reformist. The US spent some $2.2 trillion (£1.34 trillion) on healthcare in 2007. It is a mind-boggling number which amounts to over 16% of US GDP. That is nearly twice the average spent by other rich nations with advanced health systems -- yet you have to wonder if this is value for money when, by most measures, the US is a less healthy nation than other rich countries, on everything from infant mortality to longevity.
The Brits often think their NHS is bureaucratic, wasteful and costly; they may even be right, though it is still one of the country's most valued institutions by voters of all persuasions. But compared with America's, you could be forgiven for concluding that the NHS cheap and efficient.
I hope that this will provide some more ammunition to help fight back against the opponents of a civilised healthcare system like those enjoyed by the rest of the developed world.