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Anada 204
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anada "Oi, #
204 Madonna" +### +### +#### +###
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01 Schoolboy # .# ## # # .# # .# # .#
nov *### * # * *### * *### * *### *
2000 .+#################################################################.net
Just before giving birth to her son (Rocky--what's going on there?)
Madonna said on an American radio station that she was going to have a child
in a US hospital despite living in England. She claimed it was because we
have old, decrepit hospitals whereas the US has gleaming, well-equipped
ones. Fair point. Or at least a factual point.
The problem is she just not comparing like with like. In the US if
you have no health insurance and get a kidney infection, you go into debt to
the tune of thousands of dollars. If you can't afford that, you die.
Simple as that. You can't pay for treatment, you don't get any. Nice. In
the UK, we have the National Health Service (NHS) which provides full,
unlimited healthcare to anyone free at the point of use. No matter what
your class, race or nationality, you will be treated for free. Really nice.
It costs us Britains 100's of millions of pounds to fund it but the
NHS is fair. The US system simply isn't. The private hospitals in the
States are nice because of the huge profits made by healthcare providers
while in Britain we have many Victorian buildings shoring up the NHS because
it's 100% funded by taxes and everyone HAS to be treated. The French and
the Germans have a similar system but have traditionally had stronger
economies which lead to better funded and therefore "nicer" treatment
centres.
The NHS isn't just hospitals, A&E services etc. It's also
Doctors/GP's in every community. Anyone can, for no fee at all, visit a
locally accessable doctor in a fully equipped clinic and be examined and
given prescriptions. He'll refer you to specialists (who'll also treat you
for free) should it be necessary and purely on clinical grounds, not on the
status of your health insurance. We do have to pay separately for
prescription drugs but at a flat £5.95 (about $8.50) price regardless of the
commercial value of the drug and a sizable proportion of people are exempt
from paying anything. We also have District Nurses who carry out home
treatment like Insulin injections and basic medical care. For free.
A private health industry does exist. Bupa is the market leader and
is not a business as such--all its profits are re-invested in its services
because there are no shareholders. Some companies provide this private
healthcare as a perk but the vast majority of people still use the NHS.
So Madonna pissed me off when she ripped into our NHS. It's the
pride of the nation, began in the late '40's, that, although its funds are
spread very thinly, is a much more morally robust system than in the US.
For Madonna to get such nice hospitals hundred of thousands of financially
unfortunate people have had to receive inadequate treatment to fit their
budget or run up debts larger than any mortgage over the years because even
in hospital, the Dollar counts.
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anada204 by Schoolboy (c) 2000
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