Public health

Health care legislation has been featured often by recent candidates for various high political offices. It sounds nice, yes, because health care is needed by every living human. The practicality and ability to provide such care is another matter.

The advocates of national public health care point to nations who have established health care. Canada and Great Britain being the foremost of these. Citizens of those countries have pointed out problems with the service.

One of the main complaints, is the fact that they often cannot get service when they need it and must wait. They are forced to go to other countries, including the United States, to obtain needed health care and/or surgery because their National Health Service either can't or won't follow through, or they must wait until it's too late. When George and I visited Canada we talked to a lot of Canadian natives who were as eager to learn about life in the U.S. as we were about life in Canada. We compared a lot of things , among them their state run heath system. They were not as happy with it as our politicians would have you believe. Often they felt they were not receiving first class care. Often, for serious problems, they did not get the care needed. They come across the border and pay U.S. doctors to do what is needed.

A letter just this last week from a very dear British friend points out that they often cannot get the care needed, when needed, in England. My friend has mentioned that her daughter, a nurse, has been ailing. On a trip to Paris, the daughter took ill on the plane. An ambulance was standing by when they landed and rushed her to a hospital. She went to London for X-Rays on Wednesday and "the op is on Thursday." They felt they could not wait for the National Health Service to do the job. My friend was angry, saying, "She probably wouldn't live that long." She is having it done in London at a cost of some 15.000 pounds.

So much for National Health Service. Here in the United States, every time there is some such service, like Medicare and Social Security, they are in financial trouble. We hear on the news every day that Social Security and Medicare will be ending in a very few years because the bank will be empty.