[The following rant was inspired by, and partly based on, an article written by Janice Turner in The Times one recent Saturday.]

  47 million American citizens live in fear of getting ill due to a lack of universal health care. That is roughly half the population of my country.
I find it appalling that should any one of these 47 million people, living in what is arguably the the most devoutly Christian country on Earth, fall ill they will be asked for insurance details and things called "co-payments", and when they are discovered to be lacking these things they will be effectively denied medical care..
Admittedly it has been a few years since I last attended Sunday School, but I don't remember The Samaritan doing anything like that. Or Jesus.
  The right wing of America talk about the NHS as though it were some kind of Orwellian entity, a Ministry of Life, something evil, something "socialised", something that should be feared as the greatest threat to The American Dream since Cuba started smuggling cigars.
What the right wing of America do not seem so willing to talk about is the core of the NHS, its underlying principles: Christian values.

  Pehaps the cause of right wing America's suspicion (for want of a better word) of the NHS is that they do not recognise the NHS brand of Christianity, a brand of Christianity that prefers to do God's work quietly and efficiently rather than waste its energies shouting at teenagers in abortion clinics or preventing gay couples from celebrating their love in a civil ceremony.
  Perhaps the problem is much simpler, perhaps the problem is mere misunderstanding; as Sentor Grassley says "when you get to 77 your life is considered less valuable under these [NHS] systems" whilst in her article Janice Turner writes that her father, 86, "...collapsed at home, was brain-scanned until it was discovered that he had suffered a minor stroke. As a consultant attended him, physios assessed him and he was found a place in a rehabilitation unit, where he will spend a month recovering, I thought how the life of this elderly man - no high born statesman but a person of modest means - was treated as immensely precious.
  "Throuout this difficult week, in which I was plunged into the dark labyrinth that is geriatric care, I gave thanks that the least of my worries - and more importantly my father's - was money."

  In the past I have wondered what would become of me under the American healthcare system, and unlike most non-Americans I have not fallen into the trap of assuming that America has no state provisions for the old and the poor, indeed there is Medicare and Medicaid, as anyone who has watched ER or House MD will tell you.
I would fall under the Medicaid banner, because I am unutterably poor.
Under the system of Medicaid I would be guaranteed a good level of care and service, but not the the best available care and service. And yet, despite this distinction, as a user of Medicare I would be one of many who are unavoidably crippling America through the enormous cost of Medicare.
America's current state healthcare scheme is bankrupting America.
Nice.

  Most Britons know at least one person who has been through the American healthcare system, and if not there are always testimonies on the internet, but what I have learned the most from regarding healthcare in the US is the American TV channels we have been receiving here at the hostel for that last month due to a cock-up with the cable TV company (we're stealing it so we haven't complained).
  I found it unbelievable that doctors in the US will routinely order treatments, scans and operations based primarily on how much they can charge rather than what effect they will have on the patient, or that drug companies routinely advertise medicines on TV using adverts that seem to be designed to make you feel ill, listing the vaguest of symptoms, and then end with "Ask your doctor to prescribe you..." knowing that your doctor will probably do so simply because he can charge huge fees that will be taken from either your insurance company or, if you are under Medicare or Medicaid, the taxpayer, effectively taking a baseball bat to the already buckling economic-knees of the USA.
Whilst Britain was reeling from the MP's expenses scandal I was watching scandals of US doctors over-charging the country itself to pay for houses and cars I'm used to seeing in celebrity magazines, and yet President Obama wanting to divert this money from ill cribs to sick children is reason enough for most of his countrymen to demand his head, as though he were some kind of heretic or infidel.
The poor sod's blood pressure must be through the roof.

  Did you know that the US infant mortality is 6.3 per 1000 compared to the UK 4.8? When an internet friend of mine took a nasty fall he waited until he was certain he needed medical care for what felt like a broken arm. This wait lasted 24 hours, and ended only when his arm, from wrist to shoulder, turned black. He ended up being charged more than he would have been had he simply gone to hospital straight away without worrying about getting billed for unnecesary X-rays.
If you have ever broken a bone just imagine "dealing" with the pain for 24 hours, "making sure" its broken, simply because you're poor.

  Now don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to pretend that the NHS is perfect; I've been through the system too many times to be able to do that, had to wait for too many hours because I'm not an emergency, stuggled to keep appointments set at inconvenient times during the working week (yes, I have worked) because most non-emergency departments shut down on weekends, struggled to sleep at night due to the incessant noise of the wards, and secretly prayed to a god I don't believe in that my attending staff aren't suffering from any stress related conditions that could affect their work, or aren't over-tired because they've been working for more hours in a single shift than most businessmen do in a week. What I do want to say is that what is perfect is the underlying principle of the National Health Service, which is something no American can say about their own healthcare system, and untill they can I think they should stop pointing fingers at our NHS.

P.S. If any Americans still feel like arguing over the NHS then think about this first:
  In the UK the bankruptcy pie is sliced between borrower stupidity, people being fired, and divorce settlements. In the US 70% of bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.
Oh, by the way, you're looking a little peeky. Perhaps you should see a doctor?
Sleep well.