Americans are at the crossroads of change to their health care system, and with all the fear being generated about the possibility of a public option, it is little wonder that many are getting cold feet about going down that path. Some of the rumors of what could happen to our health system are based on misinformation about the British National Healthcare System. As an American who experienced the British government-run system for 14 years, I feel compelled to speak out.
First of all, a public option does not mean you can’t choose your own doctor. I moved four times in the United Kingdom and each time I moved to a new neighborhood, whether in a quaint village in the countryside or in the sprawling metropolis of London, I asked the person whose home or flat I was occupying “Who do you recommend for a local doctor?” They told me of a good doctor they had found, and I went down to the local clinic to sign on with that same doctor. I was never told I couldn’t have my doctor of choice and that I would have to sign on with someone else.
Second, I only ever once heard of someone being put on a waiting list for an operation. A friend had been diagnosed with a thrombosis caused by a congenital condition, and was scheduled to be operated on at one of London’s top hospitals by one of the U.K.’s top surgeons, Dr. George Bonny — all through the government-run national health service.
My friend had spent Sunday packing his clothes and starting to fast in anticipation for his operation on Monday, when the phone rang late in the evening. A young man had been involved in a horrific motorcycle accident and his arm had been severed. Dr. Bonny was one of the few surgeons gifted enough to save the young man’s arm — but only if he could perform the operation the next day. The operation on my friend would need to be delayed a few days so Dr. Bonny could save the arm of the young motorcyclist. My friend, also an avid motorcyclist, was all too willing to delay his operation for a few days to help a fellow Brit regain the use of his arm, and so, I guess, would have most Americans.
Third, this government-run option is not wildly expensive for the subjects of the U.K. Every working person contributes 9 percent of their salary up to $50,000. Part of this 9 percent goes for a national health service contribution, and part goes toward social security. The contributions made by working Brits into the national health care scheme provides health coverage for every person in the U.K. — every child, every working person and every pensioner.
As for quality of service, the best example I can give of how very much the British do trust their government-run health care system is the following: The British monarchy are some of the richest folk on Earth. The royal family easily could have afforded to send Princess Diana to the best private obstetrics hospital in all of Eng-land when she gave birth to Prince William, heir to the throne. Instead, both William and his younger brother, Harry, were born in a National Health Service Hospital like any common British baby. The royal babies were born at St Mary’s, Paddington, where my friend, an ordinary British subject, had his thrombosis operation and where I, a very run of the mill Mainer, was seen at the oldest allergy clinic in the world.
If the quality of Britain’s national health care system were as poor as it is being depicted in television commercials throughout the United States, then why would the British have greater longevity than Americans, and why would their health service score so much higher than ours internationally?
And why wouldn’t more British citizens have private health insurance? It is available in the U.K., yet few take up the option. Maybe they came to the same conclusion I did — that if Britain’s government-run health service was good enough for royalty, it was good enough for me.
Brenda Nasberg Jepson of Stockholm lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1978 to 1992 where she trained under a BBC producer-director and ran her own film and television company. She now runs Crown Of Maine Productions Inc. and works as a parttime TV instructor at Caribou Tech Center.