How they see us: Is universal health care un-American?

Europeans have long been appalled by America’s dysfunctional health-care system, said Alex Spillius in the London Daily Telegraph. The U.S. spends vastly more than any other country on health care, yet “by almost every measure, its people are unhealthier.” Infant mortality is higher than in Europe, and life expectancy is shorter. And “why does the richest country on earth have an immunization rate worse than Botswana’s?” Part of the problem is that doctors in the U.S. are paid by the services they render, which gives them incentives to do unnecessary procedures; also, because of America’s extreme litigiousness, doctors “overprescribe and overtest” so they won’t be sued. But the biggest trouble is the attitude of the patients. “In a very un-British way, Americans expect the best and the shiniest from their medical providers, without fail.” If President Obama is serious about reforming the U.S. system, he will have to break the news to “the American middle class that they can’t have every treatment under the sun.”

But that would be admitting that universal health care means “rationing,” said Paul Harris in the London Observer. That’s a dirty word in the U.S. context. Americans don’t seem to realize that their health care is already rationed—it is meted out only to the rich and the employed. To Britons, it is baffling that Americans refuse to consider a system that would require a few people to wait for the most expensive operations, yet they tolerate their current system, which “is fiendishly complex and full of loopholes, so even those with coverage can have it withdrawn.” Unfortunately, it looks as if the opponents of health-care reform are winning. “The Republican attack machine has cranked into gear,” telling Americans that Obama’s plan will involve “government bureaucrats, not doctors,” making decisions about their treatment.

Republicans have been using Britain’s National Health Service as a model of what to avoid, said Philip Sherwell in the London Sunday Telegraph. “They describe the evils of ‘socialized medicine’ with mantra-like intensity.” A conservative lobby group has even produced television ads featuring Britons “who suffered long waits for operations under the NHS, or were denied drugs they needed.” What those ads don’t mention, of course, is that, “for all its faults and delays,” Britain’s National Health Service provides health care to everyone for free. Americans, by contrast, have “the best treatment that money can buy”—but only if they have the money to buy it. The poor go without.

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The trouble is, most Americans just don’t care about the poor, said Christina Patterson in the London Independent. The have-nots are seen as “failed Americans, Americans who let the side down.” That’s why it’s so hard for the U.S. to enact any kind of reform that might help the less fortunate. “Sure, America’s got talent, but it’s also got some of the most unpleasant, uncompassionate, unerringly ruthless people on the face of this planet.” Good luck, Obama. You’ll need it.