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The Spectacle Blog
I wasn’t planning on watching the opening ceremonies of the London Olympics but I decided to check in on them as the Red Sox were being pummeled by the Yankees.
When I flipped the channel, I saw Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle’s tribute to Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). I wasn’t so astonished about the spectacle as I was by Matt Lauer’s reaction to it. Lauer basically said to the effect if Britain can provide healthcare for everyone then why are we even having a debate about it in America?
Well, the NHS isn’t all sick children and their doctors dancing about their hospital beds. In 2009, a 16-year old boy died of thirst when NHS staff wouldn’t give him a glass of water. Admittedly that is an exceptional example but given the circumstances the NHS isn’t worth dancing over. Boyle’s choreography didn’t include the fact that hospitals are short staffed on weekends (which is when hospitals are normally at their busiest) not to mention the spectacle of patients waiting to see the doctor. Waiting times to receive care have been increasing. Indeed, a NHS board in Scotland is under fire for manipulating waiting list data.
So yes Matt Lauer. Americans ought to have a robust debate about the kind of health care system we want. If Lauer thinks America should adopt British health care then he should be careful for what he wishes because he might get it.
With that said, it should be noted that for all the socialist programmes Margaret Thatcher dismantled, she left the NHS alone. The NHS is not without its virtues and indeed I received treatment from an NHS doctor shortly I arrived in Britain as a student intern in 1995 and my experience was a good one. If you want to read a fair and balanced comparison between the American and British health care systems then read what Fox Business Channel anchor David Asman wrote back in 2005 after his wife suffered a severe stroke while vacationing in Britain.
Butch| 7.28.12 @ 3:21PM
The perfect depiction of their NHS would to have shown the woman lying in the hospital hallway delivering her own baby. British stiff upper lip and all that.
RJ| 7.28.12 @ 3:44PM
I am fond of Great Britain, but the Opening Ceremonies were disappointing. The skits with Queen Elizabeth and Mr. Bean were fun. The cell phone skit was a bore and the NHS and industrial age segments struck me as being political propaganda ala George Orwell's "1984" praising the goodness of the state. All in all, Beijing, Athens & Sidney had more entertaining Opening Ceremonies. Opening Ceremonies are intended to be nationalistic. I just never thought that Beijing would put on a less political opening ceremony than Great Britain. How times have changed.
Mender| 7.28.12 @ 4:32PM
I interpreted it largely as a tribute to public service. The NHS doesn't pay doctors much more than teachers-it's more of a vocation than a path to riches. Which means that despite the NHS's problems (and they aren't minor), the Brits spend less than half as much on healthcare per head as the USA, and live longer.
The NHS was also founded in the same year as London last hosted the Olympics which I think may also have been a reason for it. Plus it linked with the Peter Pan references-its author bequeathed its royalties to a children's hospital in London.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 4:58PM
And you would be wrong on what the MDs in the NHS make---not FPs, but specialists. My boss in NZ made about 100,000 pounds/year. You can make more.
Much of the difference in life expectancies comes from the fact that we list neonatal fatalities that the Brits don't, because they wouldn't try to save them. Another is that we do OB services for Mexico without proper pre-natal care all along the border. 50% of the kids born in LA County are to undocumented moms.
Further, eliminate those who die from gunshot wounds and car wrecks before they hit the hospital---we drive more and have more gun fatalities, and our medical expertise and life expectancy is outstanding.
Measure life expectancy of cancer and heart patients---that gives you an idea of what American medicine can do to lengthen life expectancy. Put the neonatal deaths on an even footing, since they don't try to save the kids we save, as well.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 5:01PM
Sorry: "---we drive more and have more gun fatalities---"
In short, WHO doesn't grade us on what we can do medically, and what American society, which is far richer with many more cars and more free wheeling than that of Europe, does.
Their comparisons are bullshit, and I speak as a man who actually knows.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 4:59PM
That is, my boss in NZ WHEN he was practicing in the UK.
Mender| 7.28.12 @ 9:52PM
I'm well aware of how pay in the NHS escalates as you reach the highest levels, but as a friend of several Oxford medicine graduates from growing up in London I can tell you that what they're making doesn't come close to what they'd get if they'd been born in the USA and gone to the Ivy League. The teachers comparison isn't unreasonable, basically.
And I'm not an expert on healthcare statistics so I bow to your expertise on this. But I do find it sweet that in the UK seeing the healthcare system as a pillar of the UK social model is seen as not immediately ridiculous. The US system contains many technological marvels, but nobody in their right mind would call it efficient.
Occam's Tool| 7.29.12 @ 11:13AM
Again---specialty versus GP income. Mender, you need to distinguis. Plus, the US dollar in the US goes much farther than the pound does in Britain.
The US system is a hell of a lot more efficient in working up people than the UK model. Go to Mayo or UCLA and compare it to an NHS hospital system. As a senior consultant in an NHS model system, working with UK trained docs, I can tell you that the reason US docs can go there without extra residency training, whereas they would need to go through a residency here, is because they don't train as well or completely. I have trained US medical students as well as New Zealand ones. The US ones are much better.
Occam's Tool| 7.28.12 @ 5:02PM
By the way, Matt Lauer makes far more than his equivalent in London.
Teflon93 | 7.28.12 @ 6:00PM
Britain became a third-rate power in the world at precisely the same time they socialized their healthcare system. This was not a coincidence---they can no longer afford to defend themselves, much less the Commonwealth which is now a culture club. Should Argentina set their hearts on the Falklands now, they will have them.
Craigpurcell| 7.28.12 @ 7:57PM
Who will the GOP leave behind?
John786| 7.28.12 @ 10:43PM
The NHS may not be perfect but you would need several holes in the head to replace it with the US system.
Occam's Tool| 7.29.12 @ 11:23AM
John786: move there, please. The world comes to Mayo to be treated, and I know why. The US system is infinitely better. Our country poverty hospitals are infintely better than the British models.
You see, folks, the difference is I KNOW, from personal, hands on experience. I'm not guessing, or wondering. I have practiced in the NZ NHS, and the US states (training or practice) of Texas, California, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Minnesota. I have worked in County, VA, Private, State hospital, and the NHS hospital in Rotorua, New Zealand. I have worked for Community Mental Health Centers in New Mexico, Kentucky, Alabama, and New Zealand. I have worked in jails in New Zealand, Kentucky, Alabama, New Mexico. I have worked in prisons in Alabama and New Mexico. I have done private practice in Alabama. I have worked in suboxone clinics on Native American reservations. I have worked in a methadone clinic and a CD clinic in a VA hospital in Los Angeles. I have worked with developmental disability patients in Alabama and Kentucky. I have worked with geriatric patients in New Zealand, California, Alabama, Kentucky, Minnesota, and New Mexico. I have treated adolescents in Kentucky and New Zealand, as well as in training in California. I have dealt with commitment laws in all localities I have practiced.
I am not guessing, or wondering. My experience is as vast as the endless tundra of Siberia.
The NHS set up sucks on toast.
Occam's Tool| 7.29.12 @ 11:32AM
Sorry, John786. "infinitely better than." Misspelled infinitely. Otherwise, screw you, as usual, with all the usual calumnies. Yawn.
John786| 7.29.12 @ 7:15PM
Mr occam. Life's poetry will one day end for the both of us maybe soon, maybe late ( I pray that it is later). When the last breath occurs we will I'm sure have some regrets. I have no dought that you will regret your diatribes.
Your belief that the US health system is better than the NHS only shows how polluted your brain has become with ideology . Its rotted your brain. If the US adopted this system health on every measure would go up and costs would come tumbling down. Whats to complain about. And the trillions saved can be spent for neocon genocides, drone wars etc.. Ah! There's always a downside!!
JD| 7.29.12 @ 8:28PM
His entire comment was based on his personal experience, yet you say his commentary "shows how polluted [his] brain has become with ideology." Ignoring the grammar issues, um, wow! I'd say "pot, meet kettle", except that it is only you, not him, for whom your comments are true.
The problem with liberals, as always, is that their only idea of "debate" is a conversation that begins with the presumption that we have all agreed that they are right about everything, and the conversation will be restricted to talking about how evil we are for disagreeing with their conclusions. They simply cannot comprehend the possibility of their being wrong enough to discuss why they might be wrong. It's not that they lack the intellectual capacity; they simply refuse to exercise it.
They have been too "polluted by ideology".
Cobalt| 7.29.12 @ 2:05PM
Even Triple J is being treated by Mayo, not by the NHS.
RCV| 7.29.12 @ 12:37AM
The Opening ceremonies were a delight, and the Brits ought to be proud.
JD| 7.29.12 @ 8:24PM
Regardless of any political messaging therein, the opening ceremony was laughably bad as pure entertainment. Everyone I watched it with hated it, even though there were no political comments in our group. I've heard spontaneous criticism of it wherever I've gone since. It was like a nightmare combination of Willy Wonka's factory and "It's a Small World."
Yet RCV says "The opening ceremonies were a delight, and the Brits ought to be proud." Really? I'm guessing he wouldn't have said that if it hadn't been suggested that the ceremony was liberal. What a tool.
btims86| 7.29.12 @ 7:08AM
Absolutely the worst opening ceremonies I have ever seen. Embarassing. Pathetic and symbolic of a declining, wimpy, feminized, homosexualized has-been of a great power.
fmm| 7.29.12 @ 11:05AM
When Lauer and some of the posters here go to Britain and get cared for under the NHS, then we might listen to what they say.
Occam's Tool| 7.29.12 @ 11:31AM
Plus: NHS specialists get paid more per piece of work they do by deferring work. My colleagues in Rotorua were masters at minimizing their workload. Me, I figured I was there to take care of patients, and kept my clinic full. They hated me for that, too, in addition to the fact that I was simply a much better clinician.
The new kids coming out of medical school are happier to be cogs in a machine, but they want better hours than I have. And our population is getting older, and psychiatry is NOT a popular specialty,which is why I get job offers in the mail every week, and I'm NOT looking, wanting to offer me $250K. I make more than that here, and my work is more rewarding and my cost of living is smaller, even in relatively high tax Minnesota.