Why yes I am. My least cancer treatment was in early 1987. My last screening was negative. Thank you, very much. I feel bad for people who get my disease under team zero's watch.
The anti-NHS posters here are missing the elephant in the drawing-room here: there was nothing to have stopped the woman concerned from having private health insurance to pay for the operation just as you do in the US or indeed to pay for the op herself if she had the money (which she probably did if she was an ex-exec director of a PCT); furthermore, she could have turned up at the ER unnannounced and they would have been obliged to operate (subject to the usual triaging).
So I'm not sure what the story is here apart from the usual Daily Wail scaremongering; I'm surprised the article didn't bang on about how Essex house prices would tumble as a result of this or how a host of illegal immigrants had the operation first, which is typical Daily Heil fayre...
In my first post I was pointing out that neither system is perfect. I did this as it seemed that some posters were happy the woman had died, especially as she was an official in the state health system.
So, why would we want to replace our current system with another system that does not work? As such I prefer to keep my current insurance with its imperfections and ask the government to leave me alone. The last thing we need is more government intrusion into our lives.
Oh, and proposed health care system is not a government takeover. That has been a successful misrepresentation of the truth. The magazine, Christian Ethics Today had an interesting short article on this topic in their Winter 2011 issue. Part of it reads:
Exactly Matt. Where is the free market capitalism? Crabby and his ethics magazine can twist the truth all it wants but this mandate forced on the US will lead to a government run health care system.
Crabby, for those who don't have health insurance then maybe there is something the government can do for them if they so desire. As for me and my house the government can keep it's big nose out of our business.
Say there is a car wreck. If there is no insurance on the car it is towed to a wrecking yard by whomever has jurisdiction and sold for the tow bill. If the people don't have medical bills they are left on the side of the road for the crows - free market capitalism.
Or how about free market OT capitalism? The ambulance is owned by the private hospital. The injured person sells himself into slavery (indentured servant) to the hospital for the next 2 years to pay for his treatment.
If Congress passed a law saying every person must attend church, but it leaves the churches to operate as they have been for 2 centuries, would you call that a "government takeover of religion?"