The Far-Right Conspiracy against the NHS

[Len Colby]

What exactly are you arguing? It gets ridiculous and painful reading your drivel. You're insinuating that I believe everything said/written by Lyndon LaRouche. That's painfully clear and it comes through with your many "guru" remarks. Who do you think you're kidding?

What exactly are you arguing? It gets ridiculous and painful reading your drivel. You're insinuating that I believe everything said/written by Lyndon LaRouche. That's painfully clear and it comes through with your many "guru" remarks. Who do you think you're kidding?

OK then tell us some thing that he said or wrote that you disagree with. The way you repeatedly post his and his disciples writing is indicative of a devotee. About 40% of your posts over the last year have contained the keywords larouche, steinberg, tarpley or chaitkin

Furthermore every time you open that clap trap of yours you stick your foot in it.

Uuuh, I’m typing not talking.

Here you are telling the forum members that you remember the LaRouchies on the streets of NYC pushing the simplistic line "The Queen deals drugs". When I remind you that during that time you were a teenage drug user you laugh it off and pretend I said something other than I said. <removed by moderator (Burton)> .

Obviously you were implied there was something untoward about my “drug” use. The accuracy of my memories was confirmed but irrelevant because I was able to document that he claimed the queen was the head of a drug dealing gang, you of course refuse to acknowledge this because your worship bubble couldn’t deal with it.

Recall when you tried to paint LaRouche a racist. You used as your argument LaRouche's exposure of a medical/pysch hospital in NYC that was turning out "zombies" within the African American NYC community. That was your entire argument!

Wrong again I cite five his pronouncements and despite your rationalization in that particular case he resorted to using the stereotype of black men as predators. He didn’t “expose” anything because he didn’t provide any evidence, but of course for devotees like you that wasn’t necessary. Two forum members agreed that the comments were racist none disagreed.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=155903

As justice would have it we later find out that your father was a high ranking executive with RJR which had funded and created a hospital in Winston Salem NC dedicated to "euthanizing"and "sterilizing" local black citizens ! <removed by moderator (Burton)>

Once again we find you are a fool who can’t even get her facts straight. The medical school which carried out the sterilization (not euthanasia) program was funded by (and named after) Bowman Gray Sr. who died in 1935 decades before my dad was hired by RJR. The genetics program there was only established in 1941 after Gray’s death and they did most of their work before my dad started working for Reynolds.

http://books.google.com/books?id=oQTmb8DBv...ock&f=false

http://extras.journalnow.com/againsttheirw...rintstory1.html

Edited September 15, 2009 by Evan Burton

[John Simkin]

And no I don't think it is Nazi policy if the state provides healthcare and I never stated as much. What I stated was Barrack Obama's proposed healthcare legislation was a replay of the Nazi healthcare policy of Adolph Hitler. Now that's the real issue/question old Girl. Not some rehashed meaningless statement of the type you make. You mistate the facts and then attempt to argue based on your mistaken conception of the issue at hand.

In the LaRouche video reference is made several times to Hitler’s T4 program that was introduced in October 1939. The LaRouche organization claims that the T4 program is similar to the way the NHS works. Therefore, the video goes onto to use phrases such as “Nazi NHS” and Obama is described as advocating “Hitlerian health reforms”.

Of course, people in Britain find this kind of attack deeply offensive. My father, like millions of other British citizens, fought the Nazis from 1939. We were not like the Americans who only decided they did not like fascism until after they were bombed at Pearl Harbor.

The video does not give us any details of Hitler’s T4 program. This is understandable as it has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama’s health-care reforms. In October 1939, Hitler produced details of the T4 program under the title, “The Destruction of Lives Unworthy of Life”.

The camouflage organization created for the medical killing of adults was known as the Reich Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes. It operated from the Berlin Chancellery, at Tiergarten 4, hence the "T4" code name. In time, word of the Nazi T4 program (medical killing on a vast scale) filtered down into the general population, and resistance began to emerge. Himmler argued: “If operation T4 had been entrusted to the SS, things would have happened differently, because when the Fuehrer entrusts us with a job, we know how to deal with it correctly, without causing useless uproar among the people.”

Early in 1941, Hitler agreed to let Himmler use T4 personnel and facilities to rid the camps of “those most seriously ill, physically and mentally”. This became known as “prisoner euthanasia”. Hitler gave orders on 24th August 1941 to bring an end to T4. What was discontinued was only the visible dimension of the project: the large-scale gassing of patients. T4 officially ceased as a program, but that turned out to be still another deception. Widespread killing continued in a second phase, sometimes referred to in Nazi documents as “wild euthanasia” because doctors could now act on their own initiative concerning who would live or die. As you can see, T4 has nothing to do with the NHS or Obama's health-care policies.

For more information on this I suggest you read Robert Jay Lifton’s “The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide” (1986)

Several times the video refers to NICE as being the organization that administers the “British Nazi health-care system”. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. According to the video it is NICE that decides who is to live or die in Britain. I image this is reference to one of the roles that NICE plays in the NHS:

“NICE is asked to look at particular drugs and devices when there is confusion or uncertainty over the value of a drug or device or when prescribing practices vary across the country - so that patients may be receiving different prescribed treatments, depending on where they happen to live, rather than on the state of their health.”

The role of NICE is to look into the claims made by the multinational drug companies. For example, over the last few years these corporations have claimed that they have developed a new drug that helps deal with a particular health problem. These drugs are nearly always incredibly expensive. For example, the cost of this drug for a patient could amount to as much as £100,000 a year. Obviously, the NHS has to consider if it can afford to prescribe such drugs. NICE has upset several multinational drug companies by advising NHS doctors not to prescribe these drugs. There is nothing to stop doctors from prescribing private patients these drugs. Of course, this rarely happens as the private health insurance companies refuse to pay for these drugs. That is why it is so important for these drugs companies to persuade NICE to give their approval so that they can fleece the taxpayer.

The video uses the testimony of some patients complaining about the NHS. Any large institution will not satisfy all its customers. As I have posted earlier, my 95 year old mother has had marvelous treatment from the NHS (she is old enough to remember what health-care was like before the NHS was introduced in 1948). My wife also received excellent treatment for 12 years while suffering from cancer.

The NHS is far from being perfect. It is under-funded and I would like to see more money spent on health-care and less on nuclear weapons and the invasion and occupation of foreign countries. However, as a means of protecting people, regardless of income, it takes some beating. Anyway, it appears to be far superior to the one that exists in the United States. For example, the World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place.

Can we go back to the topic of this thread: "The Far-Right Conspiracy Against the NHS". In future, I will delete postings that have nothing to do with the topic.

[Terry Mauro]

What exactly are you arguing? It gets ridiculous and painful reading your drivel. You're insinuating that I believe everything said/written by Lyndon LaRouche. That's painfully clear and it comes through with your many "guru" remarks. Who do you think you're kidding?

What exactly are you arguing? It gets ridiculous and painful reading your drivel. You're insinuating that I believe everything said/written by Lyndon LaRouche. That's painfully clear and it comes through with your many "guru" remarks. Who do you think you're kidding?

OK then tell us some thing that he said or wrote that you disagree with. The way you repeatedly post his and his disciples writing is indicative of a devotee. About 40% of your posts over the last year have contained the keywords larouche, steinberg, tarpley or chaitkin

Furthermore every time you open that clap trap of yours you stick your foot in it.

Uuuh, I’m typing not talking.

Here you are telling the forum members that you remember the LaRouchies on the streets of NYC pushing the simplistic line "The Queen deals drugs". When I remind you that during that time you were a teenage drug user you laugh it off and pretend I said something other than I said. <removed by moderator (Burton)>

Obviously you were implied there was something untoward about my “drug” use. The accuracy of my memories was confirmed but irrelevant because I was able to document that he claimed the queen was the head of a drug dealing gang, you of course refuse to acknowledge this because your worship bubble couldn’t deal with it.

Recall when you tried to paint LaRouche a racist. You used as your argument LaRouche's exposure of a medical/pysch hospital in NYC that was turning out "zombies" within the African American NYC community. That was your entire argument!

Wrong again I cite five his pronouncements and despite your rationalization in that particular case he resorted to using the stereotype of black men as predators. He didn’t “expose” anything because he didn’t provide any evidence, but of course for devotees like you that wasn’t necessary. Two forum members agreed that the comments were racist none disagreed.

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=155903

As justice would have it we later find out that your father was a high ranking executive with RJR which had funded and created a hospital in Winston Salem NC dedicated to "euthanizing"and "sterilizing" local black citizens ! <removed by moderator (Burton)>

Once again we find you are a fool who can’t even get her facts straight. The medical school which carried out the sterilization (not euthanasia) program was funded by (and named after) Bowman Gray Sr. who died in 1935 decades before my dad was hired by RJR. The genetics program there was only established in 1941 after Gray’s death and they did most of their work before my dad started working for Reynolds.

http://books.google.com/books?id=oQTmb8DBv...ock&f=false

http://extras.journalnow.com/againsttheirw...rintstory1.html

I pointed out that here you were telling your little story that the LaRouchies were standing on a local street corner screaming "The Queen deals drugs", and you failed to mention that you were a 15 year old customer. You don't find humor in that?

And here is your winning argument- "I cited five his pronouncements, (????), he exposed nothing because he didnt provide any evidence, and two forum members agreed that the comments were racist". This passes for thinking?

Apparently you didnt follow the story very close. Below is a summary of NCLC fight to expose Lincoln as a brainwashing operation (which is exactly the point I took away from reading the phamplet).

QUOTE:

After CFC officially joined the NCLC, the latter began to use the West 91st Street building for events, forums, meetings, and training. A sample of what it was up to during the summer of 1974 can be gleaned from a leaflet headlined "ZOMBIE KILLERS OUT OF CONTROL" which attacked the Lincoln Hospital Detox Center as a brainwashing center and headquarters of the Black Liberation Army. It warned:

"This summer you will be walking down the street with your family and a cruising car will pull up beside you. A group of young black men will jump out of the car and surround you.

"As they claw in on you, you may notice that their eyes show no emotion, their pupils are pinpoints. Your throat will be slashed, your wife will be stabbed, your children's heads will be smashed against the pavement. The attackers will be grinning or laughing

http://www.ex-iwp.org/fn008.php

In 1973-74, a physician in NCLC was employed at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, and was able to use his position to gather information about links between the Lincoln Detox program (a now-defunct drug rehabilitation outfit) and Black and Puerto Rican nationalist groups. According to a former official of the program, "Some of NCLC's information on the early period of Lincoln Detox's history was very accurate. I've often wondered how they got it."

Later NYC Mayor would shut down Lincoln Detox. I wonder who drew attention to this operation, care to venture a guess Len? You cannot get anything right, you simply don't know how.

But to city officials, the presence of these radicals only aggravated an already offensive situation. In November 1978 New York Assemblyman Charles Schumer bitterly complained to the New York Times that “Lincoln Detox has compiled a well-documented record of millions of dollars in unsubstantiated payroll costs, over billing for patient care and other egregious management failures.” Mayor Ed Koch subsequently evicted the Lincoln Detox program from Lincoln Hospital, stripped away its autonomy by placing it under hospital management, and had its Shakur-aligned staffers reassigned. Koch later explained that Shakur and his followers “ran it like Che Guevara was their patron saint, with his pictures all over the wall. It wasn't a hospital; it was a radical cell.”

Now you have two forum members and I have Charles Schumer and Ed Koch.

Lastly you provide the date of Bowman Gray's death and somehow believe this will relieve you of your dilemma. It's meaningless. RJR goes all the way back to the Hanes family, who had been British assets since the Civil War. In the early 1900's the Hanes merged their tobacco operation with the Reynolds and Gray families to create "British/American Tobacco".

How would the death of a single family member Bowman Gray Sr. have any significant impact on what RJR represented? And any money Gray dedicated to his sterilization program would come from his tobacco empire (RJR).

QUOTE:

We quote now from the official story of the project: "In Winston-Salem and

in [nearby] Orange County, North Carolina, the [sterilization League's]

field committee had participated in testing projects to identify school age

children who should be considered for sterilization. The project in Orange

County was conducted by the University of North Carolina and wasfinanced

by a 'Mr. Hanes,' a friend of Clarence Gamble and supporter of the field

work project in North Carolina. The Winston-Salem project was also financed

by Hanes. ["Hanes" was underwear mogul James Gordon Hanes, a trustee of

Bowman Gray Medical School and treasurer of Alice Gray's group]....

"The medical school had a long history of interest in eugenics and had

compiled extensive histories of families carrying inheritable disease. In

1946, Dr. C. Nash Herndon ... made a statement to the press on the use of

sterilization to prevent the spread of inheritable diseases....

"The first step after giving the mental tests to grade school children was

to interpret and make public the results. In Orange County the results

indicated that three percent of the school age children were either insane

or feebleminded.... [Then] the field committee hired a social worker to

review each case ... and to present any cases in which sterilization was

indicated to the State Eugenics Board, which under North Carolina law had

the authority to order sterilization...."

Race science experimenter Dr. Claude Nash Herndon provided more details in

an interview in 1990: Note #3 Note #8

"Alice Gray was the general supervisor of the project. She and Hanes sent

out letters promoting the program to the commissioners of all 100 counties

in North Carolina.... What did I do? Nothing besides riding herd on the

whole thing! The social workers operated out of my office. I was at the

time also director of outpatient services at North Carolina Baptist

Hospital. We would see the [targeted] parents and children there.... I.Q.

tests were run on all the children in the Winston-Salem public school

system. Only the ones who scored really low [were targeted for

sterilization], the real bottom of the barrel, like below 70.

"Did we do sterilizations on young children? Yes. This was a relatively

minor operation.... It was usually not until the child was eight or ten

years old. For the boys, you just make an incision and tie the tube.... We

more often performed the operation on girls than with boys. Of course, you

have to cut open the abdomen, but again, it is relatively minor."

Dr. Herndon remarked coolly that "we had a very good relationship with the

press" for the project. This is not surprising, since Gordon Gray owned the

"Winston-Salem Journal," the "Twin City Sentinel," and radio station WSJS.

In 1950 and 1951, John Foster Dulles, then chairman of the Rockefeller

Foundation, led John D. Rockefeller III on a series of world tours,

focusing on the need to stop the expansion of the non-white populations. In

November 1952, Dulles and Rockefeller set up the Population Council, with

tens of millions of dollars from the Rockefeller family.

At that point, the American Eugenics Society, still cautious from the

recent bad publicity vis-a-vis Hitler, left its old headquarters at Yale

University. The Society moved its headquarters into the office of the

Population Council, and the two groups melded together. The long-time

secretary of the Eugenics Society, Frederick Osborne, became the first

president of the Population Council. The Gray family's child-sterilizer,

Dr. C. Nash Herndon, became president of the American Eugenics Society in

1953, as its work expanded under Rockefeller patronage.

Before working for this group of Nazi crazies your old man was a chemist in the employ of "Comercial Solvents" which was sort of a British version of IG Farben, with it's own strange history, located in the United States. What a strange career for a man who claims to have hated the Nazi regime.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Terry Mauro

[Evan Burton]

Terry - you are using banned words, and a particular phrase also crossed the line. They have been deleted. Warning One.

[Terry Mauro]

The cat is finally out of the bag. The euthanasia policy of Britains Liverpool Care Pathway is exactly the policy being pushed by President Obama and his "behaviorist advisers".

Newsweek

The case for Killing Granny.

As President Obama said, most of the uncontrolled growth in federal spending and the deficit comes from Medicare; nothing else comes close. Almost a third of the money spent by Medicare—about $66.8 billion a year—goes to chronically ill patients in the last two years of life. This might seem obvious—of course the costs come at the end, when patients are the sickest. But that can't explain what researchers at Dartmouth have discovered: Medicare spends twice as much on similar patients in some parts of the country as in others. The average cost of a Medicare patient in Miami is $16,351; the average in Honolulu is $5,311. In the Bronx, N.Y., it's $12,543. In Fargo, N.D., $5,738. The average Medicare patient undergoing end-of-life treatment spends 21.9 days in a Manhattan hospital. In Mason City, Iowa, he or she spends only 6.1 days.

Or

But how do you decide which treatments to cut out? How do you choose between the necessary and the unnecessary? There has been talk among experts and lawmakers of giving more power to a panel of government experts to decide—Britain has one, called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (known by the somewhat ironic acronym NICE). But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.) After the summer of angry town halls, no politician is going to get anywhere near something that could be called a "death panel."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215291?GT1=43002

Edited September 16, 2009 by Terry Mauro

[Guest]

The cat is finally out of the bag. The euthanasia policy of Britains Liverpool Care Pathway is exactly the policy being pushed by President Obama and his "behaviorist advisers".

............

Sorry to say this Terry but your last post is just insane!!

NICE exists to make judgements and decisions about whether often very expensive drugs pushed by 'big pharma' are actually worth public expenditure. The problem is the concept of a national health service is born of a socialist ideology which seeks to extend the life and improve the quality of life of all citizens whereas private pharmaceutical companies, and indeed private health insurance systems operate on the desire to make profits - as big as profits as possible.

There is no 'death panel' here in the UK and judging by all comparative data we have far better health provision than in the United States where if you are poor you can expect to be sicker and die sooner. I know which I'd rather have.

Now it maybe that ideologically you are a conservative individualist and prefer a health care system which is private and based on the ability to pay. There is an argument for that I am sure but not one that will ever convince me. Foaming erroneously on about the Nazi NHS, Obama, and death panels just makes you appear unhinged.

[John Simkin]

There has been talk among experts and lawmakers of giving more power to a panel of government experts to decide—Britain has one, called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (known by the somewhat ironic acronym NICE). But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.) After the summer of angry town halls, no politician is going to get anywhere near something that could be called a "death panel."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215291?GT1=43002

Did you actually read this quote? What do you think Newsweek means by the following: "But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.)"

[Craig Lamson]

There has been talk among experts and lawmakers of giving more power to a panel of government experts to decide—Britain has one, called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (known by the somewhat ironic acronym NICE). But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.) After the summer of angry town halls, no politician is going to get anywhere near something that could be called a "death panel."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215291?GT1=43002

Did you actually read this quote? What do you think Newsweek means by the following: "But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.)"

Where are the stats of wait times for primary care?

Been doing a lot of health care stuff thees days. My mom just had colon cancer surgery, my MIL knee surgery and I went just last week for an ear infection.

My wait time for my primary care doctor, 2.5 hours from call to visit.

Edited September 16, 2009 by Craig Lamson

[Terry Mauro]

There has been talk among experts and lawmakers of giving more power to a panel of government experts to decide—Britain has one, called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (known by the somewhat ironic acronym NICE). But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.) After the summer of angry town halls, no politician is going to get anywhere near something that could be called a "death panel."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/215291?GT1=43002

Did you actually read this quote? What do you think Newsweek means by the following: "But no one wants the horror stories of denied care and long waits that are said to plague state-run national health-care systems. (The criticism is unfair: patients wait longer to see primary-care physicians in the United States than in Britain.)"

John,

Did you listen to the interview of Tony Chaitkin posted on this site? If you had you might not need to ask these questions.

In the meantime perhaps you can answer why Simon Stevens who worked with Tony Blair to set up a national task force in order to get the NHS euthanasia program going in England, is working with the Obama administration to export the same kind of Liverpool Pathway Careplan into the United States?

Steven's is a Trustee of the King's Fund. Here is his bio, boasting that he is involved with US healthcare reform. Meaning he wants a euthanasia policy in the United States!

http://www.kingsfund.org.uk/who_we_are/who...on_stevens.html

Simon Stevens is President of Global Health at UnitedHealth Group, which operates in 45 countries and manages the health care of over 70 million people. He is also chairman of the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform which promotes health care modernisation, including efforts to reform the US health system.

Simon is a trustee of The King's Fund, a columnist for the Health Service Journal, and on the board of a number of international non-profit organisations. He has also been visiting professor of health policy at the LSE. He was previously the Prime Minister's Health Advisor at 10 Downing Street, and at the Department of Health, having joined the NHS twenty years ago as an NHS manager working in teaching hospitals, primary care, commissioning and mental health.

Edited September 17, 2009 by Terry Mauro

[John Simkin]

In the meantime perhaps you can answer why Simon Stevens who worked with Tony Blair to set up a national task force in order to get the NHS euthanasia program going in England, is working with the Obama administration to export the same kind of Liverpool Pathway Careplan into the United States?

But we don't have a NHS euthanasia program in the UK. Why do you keep on posting this nonsense?

[Craig Lamson]

In the meantime perhaps you can answer why Simon Stevens who worked with Tony Blair to set up a national task force in order to get the NHS euthanasia program going in England, is working with the Obama administration to export the same kind of Liverpool Pathway Careplan into the United States?

But we don't have a NHS euthanasia program in the UK. Why do you keep on posting this nonsense?

Does your NHS deny people life saving or prolonging treatments due to cost, age or physical condition? If so you have a euthanasia progrom....

Edited September 17, 2009 by Craig Lamson

[Guest]

In the meantime perhaps you can answer why Simon Stevens who worked with Tony Blair to set up a national task force in order to get the NHS euthanasia program going in England, is working with the Obama administration to export the same kind of Liverpool Pathway Careplan into the United States?

But we don't have a NHS euthanasia program in the UK. Why do you keep on posting this nonsense?

Does your NHS deny people life saving or prolonging treatments due to cost, age or physical condition? If so you have a euthanasia progrom....

They sometimes get accused of this erroneously usually by vested interests - drug company sponsored patient groups, the drug companies themselves, rabid right wing tabloid journalists.

NICE I would contend however are the good guys in all this - they subject all proposed new drugs and treatments to rigorous and scientific efficacy tests and make their judgements on the results of them. Funding a treatment when it is uncertain that it does more good than harm would be dangerous and irresponsible. Private drug companies are notoriously bad for over egging their new products.

The NHS is not perfect and those working within it can be awful. However the philosophy driving it is sound and far superior to the crude free market economics which currently operates in the USA.

[Mike Tribe]

And in any case, should Andy be denied a drug under the NICE regulations, he is free to "go private" and consult a non-NHS doctor. He obviously couldn't do this if he were poor, but then he wouldn't have this option over in the United States, either, would he?

[Craig Lamson]

In the meantime perhaps you can answer why Simon Stevens who worked with Tony Blair to set up a national task force in order to get the NHS euthanasia program going in England, is working with the Obama administration to export the same kind of Liverpool Pathway Careplan into the United States?

But we don't have a NHS euthanasia program in the UK. Why do you keep on posting this nonsense?

Does your NHS deny people life saving or prolonging treatments due to cost, age or physical condition? If so you have a euthanasia progrom....

They sometimes get accused of this erroneously usually by vested interests - drug company sponsored patient groups, the drug companies themselves, rabid right wing tabloid journalists.

NICE I would contend however are the good guys in all this - they subject all proposed new drugs and treatments to rigorous and scientific efficacy tests and make their judgements on the results of them. Funding a treatment when it is uncertain that it does more good than harm would be dangerous and irresponsible. Private drug companies are notoriously bad for over egging their new products.

The NHS is not perfect and those working within it can be awful. However the philosophy driving it is sound and far superior to the crude free market economics which currently operates in the USA.

So, you admit there are "death panels" in the UK. Thanks.

[Craig Lamson]

And in any case, should Andy be denied a drug under the NICE regulations, he is free to "go private" and consult a non-NHS doctor. He obviously couldn't do this if he were poor, but then he wouldn't have this option over in the United States, either, would he?

Sure he could in the good old US of A. In additon to private donations that fund free clinics, Medicare, Medicade and other state run programs, and doctors that work pro-bono, those evil free market capitalistic pigs "big pharma" rountinely provides life saving drugs free of charge.

BTW, can Andy, should he decide he want to "go private" take his taxes paid to the NHS and instead spend them on the private insurance of HIS CHOICE?

Most of us ugly americans favor personal CHOICE over a govermental mandate. In fact I think thats kind of how we became AMERICANS...