As a Brit, the mentality of thinking that medical insurance is better than free healthcare is utterly bizarre to me. I honestly can't see one logical reason why somebody would believe that.
(But then, the right-wing American stance in general tends to make no sense to me and probably to most people in the UK. Handguns as a civil right? Huh?)
In the past few weeks, I have paid five separate visits to my doctor. I have been to my dentist. I have a dermatology appointment next week. I have had a flu jab and two prescriptions. The only things from that list I've paid for were the dentist appointment and the prescriptions, and they were all pretty cheap. I didn't have to fill in any insurance forms or make any claims. I'm not even ill. My family members are - my mother's in remission from cancer (and has had countless appointments, inpatient stays, medications, treatments and even wigs provided for free by the NHS), my sister has ME, etc. Nobody can tell me that medical insurance (which we'd struggle to even pay for to be honest) would provide a better service than the NHS.
To me, healthcare should be a basic human right. Maybe not absolutely everything available on the NHS would count as a human right, but when something's medically necessary it should be as much a right as the rights to food, water, shelter and clothing.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2010-10-20 04:07 pm (UTC)As a Brit, the mentality of thinking that medical insurance is better than free healthcare is utterly bizarre to me. I honestly can't see one logical reason why somebody would believe that.
(But then, the right-wing American stance in general tends to make no sense to me and probably to most people in the UK. Handguns as a civil right? Huh?)
In the past few weeks, I have paid five separate visits to my doctor. I have been to my dentist. I have a dermatology appointment next week. I have had a flu jab and two prescriptions. The only things from that list I've paid for were the dentist appointment and the prescriptions, and they were all pretty cheap. I didn't have to fill in any insurance forms or make any claims. I'm not even ill. My family members are - my mother's in remission from cancer (and has had countless appointments, inpatient stays, medications, treatments and even wigs provided for free by the NHS), my sister has ME, etc. Nobody can tell me that medical insurance (which we'd struggle to even pay for to be honest) would provide a better service than the NHS.
To me, healthcare should be a basic human right. Maybe not absolutely everything available on the NHS would count as a human right, but when something's medically necessary it should be as much a right as the rights to food, water, shelter and clothing.