Treading Warily
I woke up this morning to find nine emails relating to comments requiring approval on my healthcare post from yesterday.
“Yikes”, I thought, I’ve woken a sleeping monster and a screaming mob are baying at my blog demanding my head for comparing the UK system favourably with the US. Given the attitude of some of the town hall protester types, I was actually slightly nervous about checking out the messages.
Turns out I needn’t have worried.
The nine comments were all actually trackbacks from people trying to sell a certain kind of product I referenced (I won’t reference it again, because it might happen again, but it rhymes with ‘testicles’, sort of). Who’d have thought that that industry was so particularly aggressive with their fake blogging?
And they’re all so sweet too - “A well-regarded blogger had this to say about…”, “A great source of information blogged on the subject….”. I didn’t know I was so highly regarded :-)
November 11th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
As a Brit working for the NHS, who has also had direct experience of ‘receiving’ healthcare both in the US and the UK, it is good to read some comment that is more reasoned than the wild comments (and sometimes bollocks - for US read ‘bullshit’) coming from certain constituents in the US that has been reported on the news in the UK. For example, that the NHS has ‘death lists’. The British media frequently complains about the ’state of the NHS’, albeit at times with justification, so it has been rather gratifying to see the media response to the wildness of comments about the NHS coming from the US has been to rally around the NHS and defend its egalitarian principles. Not to mention, for the most part, its world class care (for all citizens). In the aftermath of this transAtlantic ’storm’, the BBC has recently reported on a comparative study of national healthcare systems - the NHS came out as one of the best systems, with the US coming some way down the list. The US definitely has some of the best healthcare in the world, however, this is for some of its citizens. The UK also definitely has some of the best healthcare in the world, however, this is for all, both at the point of need and even if you have an ongoing condition which will cost lots of money for all of your life. I think in the end, it comes down to political/philosophical viewpoint - do you believe in healthcare for all?