the other night i watched a documentary about our national health service and the battle to get it started in 1948.the main opponents were the elite of the medical profession,consultants,surgeons down to general practitioners.they were doing very nicely,thank you,as the system stood and didn't want it to change regardless of the fact that the vast majority of people couldn't afford proper medical care.the mortality rates of babies was shocking.the opponents waged a campaign of scare stories and smear attacks against aneurin bevan,the politician whose brainchild it was.it was the first step on the road to communism,doctors would be told by the government who to treat and not treat,bevan was being paid by the russians.in the end it was the people who decided,who when given the choice between seeing a nhs doctor for free or their old doctor,chose in their hundreds of thousands the nhs.the opposition crumbled and the rest is history.
then tonight i watched a news report on the bbc about the opposition to obama's plans for health care changes in the usa.i'll be honest and say i don't know what his plans are but what struck me was the similarity of the oppositions tactics to that of 1948.the scare stories regarding communism and socialism.the right wing media and their smear campaigns.it seems to me that the ones who oppose these schemes the loudest are the ones that don't need to use them.i find it amusing that those who defend the "let the market decide"system were the first with their hands out when the banks were collapsing on a daily basis.tax payers money is good enough for them but not for the healthcare of ordinary people.
anyway i wish mr obama good luck and i hope the good people of america get a scheme that looks after them.
john.