THE TELEGRAPH: A propaganda war is masking the real problems over health care reform, says Toby Harnden.
If Stephen Hawking had been treated in Britain, he would not have survived to be awarded his Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama yesterday, because the NHS "would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless". That was the thundering verdict of the Investor's Business Daily on our National Health Service and Mr Obama's plans to introduce what Republicans term "socialised medicine".
It was, as scientists sometimes say, a beautiful hypothesis destroyed by a single ugly fact. Professor Hawking, who is completely paralysed by motor neurone disease, has been treated by the NHS throughout his 67 years, and points out indignantly that he would not have lived without its care.
Much of the conservative contribution to the health care debate raging in the United States, which is dominating a long, hot summer, has been as misguided as that newspaper editorial. With the battle lines drawn, and President Obama staking his credibility on achieving a comprehensive reform that delivers health insurance to the tens of millions without it, Democratic members of Congress are facing the wrath and anxiety of their constituents – who are being urged on by opponents of reform.
Sarah Palin, who recently resigned as Alaska's governor but remains the darling of rural conservatives, invoked the spectre of a "death panel" pronouncing on whether her baby Trig, who has Down's syndrome, should be allowed to live.
Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa suggested that this was what happened in Britain. "I've heard several senators say that Ted Kennedy with a brain tumour, being 77 years old … if he were in England, would not be treated… when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under those systems," he said.
In a television ad from the Club for Growth pressure group, a narrator intones portentously as images of Big Ben and the Union flag appear on the screen: "$22,750. In England, government health officials decided that's how much six months of life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck. That's wrong for America." Cue the Statue of Liberty and the Stars and Stripes.
The figure comes from Britain's National Institute for Clinical Evidence, which evaluates treatments in terms of the average increase in life expectancy. If the cost of prolonging someone's life for a year exceeds more than £30,000, then the NHS will not pay for that treatment. In other words, although there are no "death panels", the fundamental point is correct. The NHS does decide that some treatments are too expensive. And if that means you die? Our condolences, says the Government. >>> Toby Harnden | sday, August 12, 2009
