Stephen Hawking Defends Care in the UK

[Chris]

Obviously republicans for trying to make this an issue and falsely asserting that "Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K."

I don't like the English system, but it worked for Hawking for forty years.

The wheels have really come off the Republican Party.

you know Chris....being who the guy is...im sure he gets the best treatment possible compared to the regular peons.....

How would you know?

Did Rush tell you? Or Hannity? Or Glenn Beck?

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Awesome, except 40 years ago, he wasn't the guy he is today- he was regular "peon" as they say.

This is what I don't get- The so-called "conservatives" keep having to compare the new health care shit to Britain and other ultra-developed countries, when the current system is way more like ACTUAL shitholes like Somalia or El Salvador, where only those who can pay have "health insurance" (BIG QUOTES here). I mean, doesn't that sort of ruin your chances of being taken seriously?

"LOOK AT BRITAIN AND CANADA AND FRANCE... THEY HAVE THIS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE THING!!! AND THEY'RE GETTING SCREWED" but they always forget "INSTEAD SYRIA AND SURINAME ARE DOING REALLY GOOD WITH THEIR HEALTH "SYSTEM"!!!"

 

[elvis]

I don't like the English system, but it worked for Hawking for forty years.

The wheels have really come off the Republican Party.

you know Chris....being who the guy is...im sure he gets the best treatment possible compared to the regular peons.....

How would you know?

Did Rush tell you? Or Hannity? Or Glenn Beck?

not everyone who refuses to bow down to your Ossiah listens to Beck, Hannity, or Rush, you stupid fuck.

 

[JW Frogen]

If Hawking was in the US medical system now he would either be dead or tap dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all or nothing in the US.

 

[elvis]

If Hawking was in the US medical system now he would either be dead or tap dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all or nothing in the US.

That's right because professors can't get health coverage. Oh that's right they can and do from the universities for which they work. Try again.

 

[elvis]

Awesome, except 40 years ago, he wasn't the guy he is today- he was regular "peon" as they say.

This is what I don't get- The so-called "conservatives" keep having to compare the new health care shit to Britain and other ultra-developed countries, when the current system is way more like ACTUAL shitholes like Somalia or El Salvador, where only those who can pay have "health insurance" (BIG QUOTES here). I mean, doesn't that sort of ruin your chances of being taken seriously?

"LOOK AT BRITAIN AND CANADA AND FRANCE... THEY HAVE THIS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE THING!!! AND THEY'RE GETTING SCREWED" but they always forget "INSTEAD SYRIA AND SURINAME ARE DOING REALLY GOOD WITH THEIR HEALTH "SYSTEM"!!!"

I'm not rich. I buy insurance and get the best medical care. Most hospitals in the U.S. (listen now) CANNOT REFUSE CARE, insured or not.

 

[Annie]

IBD does own up to the error:

Investors.com - Health Care Here And Over There

Health Care Here And Over There

Posted 08/12/2009 07:07 PM ET
Reform: If the world's most famous physicist, Stephen Hawking, is a shining example of British health care, how is it that others in the U.K. are repeatedly denied critical care and medicine?

In commenting on efforts to overhaul American's health care system, we have tried to pull back the curtain and pay attention to those trying to clone the systems of Canada and Britain. But supporters of government-run health care frequently ignore some of the less-pleasant facts.

Much has been made of this statement in one of our Aug. 3 editorials: "People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K. where the National Health Service would say the quality of life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

It was a bad example, and we have acknowledged that. To repeat the correction we ran shortly after the editorial ran: Hawking, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the progressive neurodegenerative disease often referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease, is indeed a British subject.

We also say that not everyone suffering from a debilitating disease is Stephen Hawking, and we hope our critics would acknowledge that. Hawking is a renowned theoretical physicist, university professor and best-selling author. It is doubtful any National Health Service bureaucrat would cut him off.

Hawking, in response to a query from London's Guardian newspaper that was apparently prompted by our editorial, was quoted Tuesday as saying: "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

We accept this testimony and good fortune. We will note, however, that in talking about his disability on his own Web site, Hawking makes no mention of NHS and instead says that since 1985, when he had a tracheotomy, he has had "24-hour nursing care ... made possible by several foundations."

Many other Britons may not be as fortunate, and we wonder how they might fare under similar circumstances in their later years. For example, many British women — whose breast cancer mortality rate is nearly twice that of American women — have been denied care in relative obscurity.

We suspect the concern in the U.K. (and the U.S.) over our editorial is similar to a diversionary tactic used here in the Colonies. When you don't want to talk about some of the realities of government-run medical care, you change the subject. You may call elderly town hall protestors a coached mob.

It's easy to ignore the fact that data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, hardly a right-wing organization, show that the U.K.'s heart-attack fatality rate is almost 20% higher than America's, and that angioplasties in Britain are only 21.3% as common as they are here.

Or it's easy to forget that in March, the U.K.'s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) ruled against the use of two drugs, Lapatinib and Sutent, that prolong the life of those with certain forms of breast and stomach cancer.

So it's no surprise to discover that while breast cancer in America has a 25% mortality rate, in Britain it's almost double at 46%. Prostate cancer is fatal to 19% of American men who get it; in Britain it kills 57% of those it strikes. We are not making this up. Some facts on prostate cancer: Prostate Cancer Risk Factors: Age, Race, Diet, and Other Risk Factors

Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York and an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, wrote on Feb. 9 on Bloomberg.com that in 2006, a U.K-based board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took three years to get that outrageous decree reversed.

As National Review Online's Deroy Murdock points out, the Orwellian-named NICE just unveiled plans to cut annual steroid injections for severe back pain from 60,000 to 3,000.
"The consequences of the NICE decision will be devastating for thousands of patients," Dr. Jonathan Richardson of Bradford Hospitals Trust told London's Daily Telegraph. "It will mean more people on opiates, which are addictive and kill 2,000 a year. It will mean more people having spinal surgery, which is incredibly risky and has a 50% failure rate."
And here we thought the first rule of medicine was to do no harm.

According to Scott Atlas of the Hoover Institution, British patients wait about twice as long as Americans — sometimes more than a year — to see a specialist, have elective surgery such as hip replacement or get radiation treatment for cancer. In Britain, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

The U.S. has 34 CT scanners per million citizens compared with eight in Britain. The U.S. has almost 27 MRI machines per million compared with about six per million in Britain. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40% higher than in America.

David Gratzer, a physician and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, says the difference is that in the U.S., internists recommend that men 50 and older get screened for colon cancer. In the National Health Service in the U.K., screening begins at 75.
Avastin, a drug for advanced colon cancer, is prescribed more often in the U.S. than in the U.K., by some estimates as much as 10 times more....

Now will Obama correct what he said?

At What Cost, Cutting Off A Leg? - The Atlantic Politics Channel

Aug 12 2009, 8:16 pm by Marc Ambinder
At What Cost, Cutting Off A Leg?
An amusing press release from the governing body for American surgeons:

The American College of Surgeons is deeply disturbed over the uninformed public comments President Obama continues to make about the high-quality care provided by surgeons in the United States. When the President makes statements that are incorrect or not based in fact, we think he does a disservice to the American people at a time when they want clear, understandable facts about health care reform. We want to set the record straight.

-- Yesterday during a town hall meeting, President Obama got his facts
completely wrong. He stated that a surgeon gets paid $50,000 for a leg
amputation when, in fact, Medicare pays a surgeon between $740 and
$1,140 for a leg amputation. This payment also includes the
evaluation of the patient on the day of the operation plus patient
follow-up care that is provided for 90 days after the operation.
Private insurers pay some variation of the Medicare reimbursement for
this service.

-- Three weeks ago, the President suggested that a surgeon's decision to
remove a child's tonsils is based on the desire to make a lot of
money. That remark was ill-informed and dangerous, and we were
dismayed by this characterization of the work surgeons do. Surgeons
make decisions about recommending operations based on what's right for
the patient.

We agree with the President that the best thing for patients with diabetes is to manage the disease proactively to avoid the bad consequences that can occur, including blindness, stroke, and amputation. But as is the case for a person who has been treated for cancer and still needs to have a tumor removed, or a person who is in a terrible car crash and needs access to a trauma surgeon, there are times when even a perfectly managed diabetic patient needs a surgeon. The President's remarks are truly alarming and run the risk of damaging the all-important trust between surgeons and their patients.

We assume that the President made these mistakes unintentionally, but we would urge him to have his facts correct before making another inflammatory and incorrect statement about surgeons and surgical care​

.

 

[Fatality]

The Republicans and the Blue Dogs are fighting a public option for healthcare because of the $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in campaign contributions...BLAH BLAH BLAH

no, its because we are too smart to let fuckers like you run our lives, now get on your knees in front of obama, its where you really want to be anyway and you know it.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

I'm not rich. I buy insurance and get the best medical care. Most hospitals in the U.S. (listen now) CANNOT REFUSE CARE, insured or not.

Yeah, well, that's the one thing that makes the US difference from most developing world countries that have pretty much similar "health care systems": Most people actually have money, at least relatively speaking. So that's the plus side. But not everybody does.

and I have heard that yeah, if I'm in the US and get a heart attack (which I would hope wouldn't happen since I'm barely 21) I will get admitted. But If I were to get cancer or AIDS I couldn't go to a hospital and tell them "alright, treat me and gimmie all you've got so it doesn't get worse." And even if I did, they'd charge me $$$$$$$$$$ for it. And YOU would still have to pay taxes for it. That just isn't a health care "SYSTEM," it's pretty much they very least you can do.

 

[JW Frogen]

If Hawking was in the US medical system now he would either be dead or tap dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all or nothing in the US.

That's right because professors can't get health coverage. Oh that's right they can and do from the universities for which they work. Try again.

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess the question is, can a blue collar hick like you get comprehensive coverage?

Are pre-existing inbred genetic conditions covered with your HMO?

 

[Harry Dresden]

Awesome, except 40 years ago, he wasn't the guy he is today- he was regular "peon" as they say.

This is what I don't get- The so-called "conservatives" keep having to compare the new health care shit to Britain and other ultra-developed countries, when the current system is way more like ACTUAL shitholes like Somalia or El Salvador, where only those who can pay have "health insurance" (BIG QUOTES here). I mean, doesn't that sort of ruin your chances of being taken seriously?

"LOOK AT BRITAIN AND CANADA AND FRANCE... THEY HAVE THIS SOCIALIZED MEDICINE THING!!! AND THEY'RE GETTING SCREWED" but they always forget "INSTEAD SYRIA AND SURINAME ARE DOING REALLY GOOD WITH THEIR HEALTH "SYSTEM"!!!"

bullfucking shit...the guy had his first major theory in 1970....in the late 60's he was already a professor of note in England...and his disease was just starting.....as such asshole he was probably privy to just a little more care than the average guy.....and i aint no conservative jerk and every time you call me one i will keep on calling you an asshole ....

 

[Harry Dresden]

I don't like the English system, but it worked for Hawking for forty years.

The wheels have really come off the Republican Party.

you know Chris....being who the guy is...im sure he gets the best treatment possible compared to the regular peons.....

How would you know?

Did Rush tell you? Or Hannity? Or Glenn Beck?

i hate to tell you this dipshit...but the privileged in any country get the best care available....and i dont need anyone to tell me anything Chris,unlike you i make up my own mind....you on the other hand.....

 

[NYcarbineer]

Obviously republicans for trying to make this an issue and falsely asserting that "Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K."

I don't like the English system, but it worked for Hawking for forty years.

The wheels have really come off the Republican Party.

you know Chris....being who the guy is...im sure he gets the best treatment possible compared to the regular peons.....

That would be the ideal conservative market based model, wouldn't it. The more money you have the better healthcare you can afford, the healthier you are. The less money you make, the less healthcare you can afford, the less healthy you are.

That is conservative economics in a nutshell.

 

[Harry Dresden]

If Hawking was in the US medical system now he would either be dead or tap dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all or nothing in the US.

he would have the best care because of who he is....

 

[Harry Dresden]

If Hawking was in the US medical system now he would either be dead or tap dancing on Dancing with the Stars.

It is all or nothing in the US.

That's right because professors can't get health coverage. Oh that's right they can and do from the universities for which they work. Try again.

NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess the question is, can a blue collar hick like you get comprehensive coverage?

Are pre-existing inbred genetic conditions covered with your HMO?

and so the NHC plan being thrown about now will cover this?....YES OR NO?....Blue shield covered my wife and she had an existing condition...

 

[Shogun]

He's a human intellectual who married his nurse.

His forte is not politics.

his forte doesn't have to be politics given his LIVING EXAMPLE of the nature of health care in England. Your kind would have put Hawking in a nursing home back in the 70s.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

bullfucking shit...the guy had his first major theory in 1970....in the late 60's he was already a professor of note in England...and his disease was just starting.....as such asshole he was probably privy to just a little more care than the average guy.....and i aint no conservative jerk and every time you call me one i will keep on calling you an asshole ....

Hey cool it man, cool it. I was saying 'conservatives' in general, not necessarily speaking about you specifically.

I just disagree with your whole "theory" here. This is really "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" we're talking about, remember? Everybody gets the same care? It's not like he 'bought' extra insurance.

 

[Harry Dresden]

bullfucking shit...the guy had his first major theory in 1970....in the late 60's he was already a professor of note in England...and his disease was just starting.....as such asshole he was probably privy to just a little more care than the average guy.....and i aint no conservative jerk and every time you call me one i will keep on calling you an asshole ....

Hey cool it man, cool it. I was saying 'conservatives' in general, not necessarily speaking about you specifically.

I just disagree with your whole "theory" here. This is really "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE" we're talking about, remember? Everybody gets the same care? It's not like he 'bought' extra insurance.

ok sorry EP....but the usual way things go on this board is if you disagree with someone you must be a conservative,right winger etc....and since you mentioned Conservatives....

and no i dont agree with ya on the same care shit...i dont care what country you live in,if you are someone of note or have more money....you are going to see the best guys,the best med centers....more so than the guy down the street .....its just the way it is....self preservation is a strong motivator....

 

[PoliticalChic]

The Republicans and the Blue Dogs are fighting a public option for healthcare because of the $3.4 BILLION DOLLARS in campaign contributions they have received from the healthcare industry. And their minions are too stupid to realize this. Just about everything they have said is lies.

But the world is different today. It is not as easy to lie. And their lies are being exposed.

The optional end of life counselling is the most amazing lie of all. Unbelievable! I guess none of these people has ever heard of a living will.

Those on the right have no idea who Stephen Hawking is. Remember, they are anti science.

I guess there is Science, and then there is Science. Wow, we sure are lucky to have you guys showing us the way.

"As the debate over President Obama's socialized healthcare plan heats up, the depth of his radicalism is becoming more evident.

John Holdren, Obama’s recent choice for “Science Czar,” provides the latest and perhaps most troubling example of extremism. In the name of population control, Holdren has advocated both forced abortion and compulsory sterilization through government-administered tainting of the water supply. "
Pro-Abortion Science Czar John Holdren May Forecast Future of "ObamaCare"




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[PoliticalChic]

I don't like the English system, but it worked for Hawking for forty years.

The wheels have really come off the Republican Party.

you know Chris....being who the guy is...im sure he gets the best treatment possible compared to the regular peons.....

How would you know?

Did Rush tell you? Or Hannity? Or Glenn Beck?

Must be a pretty good plan, as all those pols want it...don't they?

•Obama tells us he wants a public plan comparable to the Federal Employees' Health Benefits Plan Congress enjoys. This notion is a farce. Congress has a high-choice cafeteria plan that is indeed paid for by the public, but it is not run by the government.
•Congress enjoys very special perks the rest of us can only dream about. There is an attending physician on call exclusively for members of Congress, and Congress enjoys VIP access and admission to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Bethesda Naval Medical Center. Is Congress going to provide us with VIP treatment?

"Under the current draft of the Democrat healthcare legislation, members of Congress are curiously exempt from the government-run health care option, keeping their existing health plans and services on Capitol Hill."

American Thinker: ObamaCare is a sick joke

Wise up.