'So If
You're Poor, You're Dead'? Watch These Brits
Gasp When They Find Out Cost of Healthcare in
the United States
"The cost of American healthcare is literally
unimaginable to most British people."
By Eoin Higgins
December
03, 2019 "Information
Clearing House"
- Britons in a video released Tuesday expressed
incredulity and shock at the high cost of
healthcare in the United States and thanked the
United Kingdom's publicly-funded and
administered National Health Service for sparing
the country's people such exorbitant prices.
"So if you're poor, you're dead," one young
woman tells the interviewer from Joe
Politics after hearing an asthma inhaler in
the for-profit U.S. system costs between $250
and $300.
Two different men appear shocked when told
Americans can be charged $2,500 for an ambulance
ride.
"For real?" one asks. "Why?" asks another.
Watch the video:
"I've said it before and I'll say it again,"
tweeted
historian David Walsh, "the cost of American
healthcare is literally unimaginable to most
British people."
The
person-on-the-street interviews that make up the
four minute video come in the wake of reports in
late November that the ruling Conservative
Party, which faces off against left-leaning
Labour on December 12 in national elections, is
planning on opening the U.K.'s health system to
a more U.S. approach after leaving the European
Union.
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Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn called the reporting on the
NHS's potential turnover to the U.S., based on a
leaked, unredacted 451 pages of trade documents,
evidence that Conservative leader Boris
Johnson's denials were "in tatters."
"We
have now got evidence that under Boris Johnson
the NHS is on the table and will be up for
sale," Corbyn said. "He tried to cover it up in
a secret agenda and today it has been exposed."
"Brits
can't fathom the barbarity of America's
healthcare system," tweeted progressive radio
host Benjamin Dixon. "But if they don't vote
Labour, they'll find out once the NHS is sold
off to America's healthcare vultures."
The video appeared to be offering lessons to
people on both sides of the Atlantic. Author
Elon Green, however, wondered what
practical effect the video would have in the
U.S., especially on those on the right.
"The
problem is American conservatives can't be
shamed," said Green. "They think it's great that
healthcare costs a fortune and poor people die."
Libby Watson, a British reporter for The New
Republic who lives in the U.S.,
said on Twitter
that voting for Labour was the only responsible
course for the U.K.
"We
know Boris Johnson wants to sell off the NHS to
American healthcare companies. but more than
that, he is a fucking Tory, and the Tories do
not want the NHS to survive; they want to
strangle it, as they have been doing over the
last 10 years," said Watson.
The NHS
is "literally the gift that keeps on giving,"
says one woman interviewed in the video.
"I
didn't realize how much free healthcare we got
like just off the bat," said the young man whose
jaw dropped at the cost of an ambulance.
"Thank
you, NHS, for all your hard work," he added.
The New Republic's
Watson
said that the
Joe Politics video reinforced her
experiences trying to explain the U.S.
healthcare system to people in the U.K.
"When I
try to explain how my insurance works here to
British people," said Watson, "they're like
'wait, so you pay your premiums... and then you
pay more when you actually go to the doctor?'"
This article was originally published by "Common
Dreams"
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