The Student Room Group

Ted Kennedy speaks out on US health care reform

http://www.newsweek.com/id/207406

health care must be affordable and available for every mother or father who hears a sick child cry in the night and worries about the deductibles and copays if they go to the doctor. But that was just one medical crisis. My family, like every other, has faced many—at every stage of life. I think of my parents and the medical care they needed after their strokes. I think of my son Patrick, who suffered serious asthma as a child and sometimes had to be rushed to the hospital for treatment. (For this reason, we had no dogs in the house when Patrick was young.) I think of my daughter, Kara, diagnosed with lung cancer in 2002. Few doctors were willing to try an operation. One did—and after that surgery and arduous rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, she's alive and healthy today. My family has had the care it needed. Other families have not, simply because they could not afford it.


It is ridiculous that anywhere in the world somebody has to weigh up financial difficulty against life-saving treatment, never matter one of the richest countries in the world.

Makes me proud to have the NHS, it defines the UK as a Socialist state.



Do you agree with Ted Kennedy? Should the US have health care reform to help out low-income citisens?

Would you therefore agree or disagree with public health care in a general sense, applying to the UK's NHS?



Do higher earners deserve better health care than those who earn less?
Reply 1
I think the UK system is pretty good, no matter how much people bash it: NHS for everyone so you can get any worries checked up without stressing about cost/insurance etc.; and the option of private healthcare, which both takes weight off the NHS waiting list and lets people who've worked hard for their cash spend it on imporoving their health.
Sforzando
I think the UK system is pretty good, no matter how much people bash it: NHS for everyone so you can get any worries checked up without stressing about cost/insurance etc.; and the option of private healthcare, which both takes weight off the NHS waiting list and lets people who've worked hard for their cash spend it on imporoving their health.


I do agree I must admit, however there is a point to be made that many middle class people who don't go private (and possible even some working class people), would get better health care for their money in the US where their taxes didn't go towards public healthcare and instead the spend directly on a healthcare plan.
Reply 3
Rizzletastic
I do agree I must admit, however there is a point to be made that many middle class people who don't go private (and possible even some working class people), would get better health care for their money in the US where their taxes didn't go towards public healthcare and instead the spend directly on a healthcare plan.


True, I suppose... on the other hand, I for one would be happy that my taxes were going to help the people who really couldn't afford it.

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