Well I Never! British Doc Slams Sen. Grassley and Anti-Healthcare Reform Group as "Ludicrous... False and Distasteful"
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT by Meg White
Lord Ara Darzi, a British surgeon and former minister for the UK's National Health Service (NHS), spoke with National Public Radio's Steve Inskeep this morning about American opposition to healthcare reform. After explaining that a lot of the supposed facts about Britain's healthcare system being tossed around by those who oppose change here in the U.S. are based on outdated figures from before the British government reformed the healthcare system, Darzi reacted to a couple of clips from American news.
First, Inskeep played an audio clip of Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) talking about how, if Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) were a Brit, the NHS would refuse to treat his brain tumor or would not treat it as aggressively, because of his advanced age.
"I'm sorry to say that's the most ludicrous thing I've heard. I've heard that written down, but I've never heard it in real speech," Darzi said, adding that Grassley's remarks are "not just false, these are lies which have been used to set fear against reform."
Next Inskeep played the audio from a Club For Growth ad which suggests that the British government has figured out how much six months of life is worth, and that if one's medical procedure costs more than that "you're out of luck." Darzi rejected that insinuation outright, and reminded Inskeep that a Brit's life expectancy is longer than an American's.
"I'm not standing up here and saying we have the best healthcare system that you should copy, that is not the intention of me getting on the radio to you. It's, I'm making clear that what you're hearing is not just false and distasteful, it just far [exceeds] what I expected someone in these senior political roles to be disseminating fear against the system."
BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
For more from NPR on the British healthcare system, listen to today's segment, Is Britain's Health System Really That Bad?
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