Health Care's New Enemy: The British

As the health care debate grows ever more heated and vitriolic, there's a new enemy out there: the British National Health Service (NHS).

Sure, people have been invoking the specter of socialized medicine for some time now. But in the last few weeks, "NHS-baiting" has become the tactic du jour of conservative politicians and bloggers attacking President Obama's health care initiative.

Perhaps the most egregious example was furnished by Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee. Grassley argued that his ailing Democratic colleague, Edward Kennedy, would be left to die untreated from a brain tumor in Britain because he would be considered too old to deserve treatment.

An editorial in Investor's Business Daily similarly claimed that someone like world renowned scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the British Health System because his extreme handicaps would render his life "worthless." (Never mind that Hawking is British and says he wouldn't be alive today without the NHS. The comment has since been excised from the Web site.)

But it's not just in the area of alleged death panels where the NHS is being pilloried by conservatives. A recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal suggested that animals are treated better than humans in Britain.

And take a look at this video -- an advertisement by the Conservative Club for Growth -- which brandishes images of Big Ben and a Union Jack flag as it argues against the dangers of government-managed health care.



The Brits have taken notice. As The Guardian reported yesterday, charges that the NHS is both "evil" and "Orwellian" are being received with dismay by doctors and politicians alike in the U.K. The British are proud of their 61-year-old tax-financed health care system, which spends less per head than the American system but yields a higher life expectancy. The World Health Organization ranks Britain's health care as 18th in the world, while the U.S. is in 37th place.

But while British Embassy officials are keeping a close eye on the terms of this debate to correct any inaccuracies, they are apparently loath to get involved in a domestic debate.

How noble of them. And what a shame that Americans lag so far behind the British in both their health achievements...and their manners.