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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Les H who wrote (17773)	12/11/1998 12:39:00 PM
From: iandiareii	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Les-- You posted a 19 paragraph article which outlined the widening gap in health status among Britain's rich and poor. At the end of the article, you added only this remark: So much for nationalized health care. I'm still not sure you even read the article. The government report upon which the article commented cited a litany of societal ills that fall disproportionately on the poor -- especially children -- and concludes that "nequalities in health are directly linked to inequalities in income." Those ills include a paucity of affordable fresh food in poorer neighborhoods, crummy housing, environmental pathogens from pollution, etc. When I replied by pasting the author's comment that the report condemned the free market policies Blair's government inherited from the Tories you responded "[t]hat is the author's opinion." Quite true, Les, although clearly it is the author's considered and informed opinion, as opposed to your "nationalized health care" non sequitur. So I'll pull another quote from the article that you posted which clashes with the conclusion you attempt to draw: "Policies which increase the income of the poorest are likely to improve their living standards, such as nutrition and heating, and so lead to improvements in health....We consider that without a shift of resources to the less well off, both in and out of work, little will be accomplished" That quote is not the journalist's summation, it's from the report itself. The report insists that beefed up social programs -- and not just "nationalized health care" -- are required to address the problems that contribute to the ill health among the poor and working poor. Finally, your reply to me asserted that the report "makes no mention of the extremely long waiting lists for surgeries in Britain." Again, here's the article you posted: Acheson's remarks about the futility of "targeting" healthcare also directly contradicts the government's own piecemeal and cosmetic approach. In the last period, Labour has made much play of "targeting" certain problem areas as a means of destroying universal healthcare. For example, it has allocated some additional funding to reduce ever-increasing hospital waiting lists From this I deduce that the report acknowledged that the backlog remains one problem among many, but is not central to report's primary issue -- the health disparity among Britain's rich and poor. You seem to be criticizing the report for not being the indictment of "nationalized health care" that you wanted it to be (and assumed it was when you decided to post it). I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, Les, but first you'll have to convince me that you did more than skim the article in the first place. ian