A tale of two health systems

The NHS is something we take for granted. The thought of paying for basic health care is an alien thought to most Scots and any politician who questioning whether the NHS should exist would be crazy. So it should come as no surprise that people in Britain have reacted angrily to some American’s criticising our National Health Service, especially since many are badly misinformed and some are dangerously misleading.

This has all came about because President Obama is trying to reform healthcare in the US. Without going into the the details of his plans it is obvious he is not talking about creating some sort of US national health service. But that has not stopped critics of his plans from saying that is what he wants. Worse, some have talked of how he wants to set up “death panels” that will decide who gets healthcare and who doesn’t – including former Vice-President candidate Sarah Palin.

I don’t know the exact details of Obama’s plans but I do know that its aim to increase the number of people who have health insurance – 45.7 million don’t have any sort of insurance in the United States, a shocking figure in one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. I just want to add two stories to the debate: one I heard when visiting the States last year and one about my own family in Scotland.

I met the woman in Grand Rapids in Michigan when I was visiting the State last summer; she was a social worker so the conversation eventually turned to healthcare and the NHS, of which she was really interested. She told me that her father had been diagnosed diabetic some years before and his kidneys had failed shortly after. He had recently retired so was no longer covered by his employers health insurance. In any event, his illness cost him nearly his whole life savings, leaving him nothing for his retirement.

By contrast, my grandfather’s kidneys failed some years ago. He had to get dialysis treatment for a number of years and eventually got a transplant but now has to take tablets every day to keep his kidney healthy. At no point did he have to pay a penny. Even taxis or buses to the hospital for his dialysis treatment were paid for. He can now enjoy his retirement to the full with all the money he has saved up over a lifetime of working.

The contrast could not be more stark. Whether his level of care would have been better in an American hospital may be debateable but the point is: he got treatment. Without the NHS I doubt he could have afforded it and if he had he would have very little of his hard-earned savings left.