Oh dearie, dearie me
As a matter of interest, what is the average % paid in tax in the US?

I believe the expression 'you get what you pay for' may apply.

The NHS was set up by suspicious Socialist types at a point when the UK was financially on its knees, paying back massive sums to...the USA in Lend-Lease payments (the fact that the US was pouring cash into the remains of the Third Reich at the time to keep them darn commies out is an amusing historical aside), had just lost a major chunk of the much-maligned but compared to others fairly benign Empire (oh, and leased out a few bits to,wait for it, the US) and was so skint after spending years fighting the war (yep, the one you were late for) that we still had civilian food rationing for many years, and still managed to set up something with the highest principals. Oh, and turned up to give you a hand in Korea.

However, what you get after 60 years of political interference, mismanagement and complete financial incompetence is very different.

Go to your average A&E department. If you are upright, sober, and quiet, chances are you'll be seen in about 4-5 hours. You'll probably see bins over-flowing with clinical waste, clotted bloody fluids, staff poached from across the thirld world to fulfil political pledges and because a good proportion of UK kids don't want to be spat on on a regular basis for crap money, your blood samples will either be lost, incorrectly packed, or the results disappear into an admin vortex. You'll see 'cubicles' without beds, missing/broken lights, and funnily enough rather nice and dedicated, if tired staff.

All personal experiences.

A few weeks ago, I was at the funeral of a friend who contracted MRSA in hospital halfway through chemotherapy. The MRSA weakened her to such an extent that she was basically told the chemo was to be discontinued as she was no longer likely to survive, here's some opiates, now off you go and die quietly like a good little soldier. Which she did.

If you have a chronic condition, especially for such things as joints/backs, in fact almost anything orthopaedic, you will get heavy hints about going private for everything from chiropracty to full knee/hip replacement. Huzzah, you're off the list!

If you live in the wrong area, your primary care trust may not have the same opinion as the one next door about using Therapy X. You could very well snuff it thanks to your location. NICE may decide that the proven, tested and used all over the world Therapy Y is not cost effective enough for use in the UK, leaving you to expire while a Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey lives to a ripe old garlic flavoured age. The hospitals themselves tend to be either old, saturated with nasty bacteria, or built using PFI in the last ten years, with the result that our children will be filling the well-inflated pockets of major New Labour supporters when we could just have built the fuckers using public cash and saved a bundle over time. Except we couldn't, because PFI commitments are off the books (Hi Gordon).

However, all the above are our problem. We're allowed to whinge as much as we like. It's part of Brit culture by now. And, we pay for it, so we can.

If you live in a country and culture which has traditionally preferred to spend it's cash on shiny things, bombing foreigners, and running around looking for Commies to annoy, then that's your problem. Use the much vaunted democratic process to change it, except it's unlikely to work, as it's too 'Liberal' and I suspect would be so unimaginably expensive that you'd have to cut back on hiding UFOs and bailing out incompetent financial institutions (oops, hang on....)

So, lets get to the point. By your own admission, you got the old blood sugar wrong (probably expended all your energy according to your post last week), went 'weeble weeble' and went down faster than an Essex Girl. Your error. You woke up to see a couple of nice people who had decided to be nasty to you and administer (lifesaving? I don't know. But a diabetic coma can't be good) medical assistance to the person lying on the floor making the place look untidy. Okay so far. And it's going to cost you. Sorry matey, but everyone fucks up expensively now and then. I even bought an Isuzu once.

You're just a bit cross, aren't you?

And someone has told you about the incredible 'Free' NHS that everyone moans about.....




Edit: this is not an Anti-American rant. I quite like them, in a 'two cultures separated by a common language' way. Some of my favourite B3tans are Septics. It'd just be nice if people would do their research before getting all gobby (Madonna for one) about an institution whose moral principles are/were the envy of the world, even if it was invented by Socialist Scum.
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 3 Oct 2008, 8:39, Reply)