THAT BOGEYMAN IS HERE AGAIN!

The Republicans are at it again, raising the spectre of that old nemesis---dare I use the dirty word?---SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!! Now they are flinging indiscriminate barbs at the National Health Service in U.K., hereafter referred to as the N.H.S. They are using all the tired old arguments I've been hearing since the fifties about the failures of the N.H.S.: the long waiting time to see a doctor, the inferior quality of medical treatments, inavailability of specialists, etc., etc---same old, same old. This strategy of dumping on the N.H.S. is to convince the public that the attempts by President Obama to reform and extend heath care to the 40+ millon who don't have it will lead to a monolithic super-government supervised by a Death Squad which will plummet us to chaos and ruin. Does the fact that America, the leading industrial nation in the world and powerhouse of the G-20 is the ONLY major nation that does not have a national health plan count for anything? Tell that to the 40+ million.

The N.H.S. here in U.K., like the Empire, strikes back. Published in "The Daily Telegraph" were a list of allegations the right wing had claimed about the N.H.S. and the N.H.S. response.

For example, the conservatives claim that people over 59 can't receive heart repairs, stents or bypasses. Fact: a national audit on cardiac surgery demonstrated that 20% of all cardiac patients were 75 or over.

Claim: Women under 25 are not allowed to be screened for cervical cancer. Fact: Women in Scotland, Wales and Northern Island (all part of United Kingdom) get regular screenings; in England, under 25 can be screened if deemed clinically needed.

Claim: Ted Kennedy at 77 would be too old to be treated for his brain tumor in England. Fact:
Health service is provided on the basis of clinical need, regardless of age, according to a Department of Health spokesman.

Claim: 4 in 10 cancer patients under N.H.S. don't have access to an oncologist. Fact: Macmillian Cancer Support states those figures are 15 years old and that the number of cancer specialists has risen by 59.7% since 1997.

You know the old adage that you can skew numbers (and facts) to suit your purposes, and, to my mind, that's what the right wing is doing. The N.H.S. isn't perfect, like most bureaucracies, but if there are critical life decisions to be acted upon, they come through.

The Nobel Physicist Stephen Hawking was in Washington to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our highest civilian honor. He is wheelchair-bound and has suffered for years from Lou Gehrig's disease---but he said in an interview in Washington that he would not be alive without the N.H.S.

Q.E.D.