Posted on 07/28/2012 11:12:05 AM PDT by Mozilla
The letters ‘NHS’ dazzled in bright red, like some triumphant advert. All around pranced self-indulgent nurses who had volunteered to take a few days off to be part of the ceremony.
And how long did this shameful propaganda last for? A whole 15 minutes at the top of proceedings before viewers dozed off to the procession of banana republics and far-flung destinations nobody has ever heard of or even cares for.
That such a politically divisive subject was included at all is utterly shocking. Not least because it glossed over the cracks in a system that is creaking at its seams - crying out for urgent reform.
And nobody seems to have considered the sheer hypocrisy that the majority of the athletes taking part in the Games will have access to the most expensive cutting-edge private treatment available in the world for even the slightest graze on their bodies.
The NHS segment came after a mildly moving rendition of Jerusalem (though this will move any patriot) and a play depicting the industrial revolution tearing up Blake’s ‘green and pleasant land’.
It was the absurdly unrealistic scene – and indeed one that would spring from the kind of nonsensical targets and equality quotas we see in the NHS - showing a mixed-race middle-class family in a detached new-build suburban home, which was most symptomatic of the politically correct agenda in modern Britain.
This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but it is likely to be a challenge for the organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family in such a set-up.
This multicultural equality agenda was so staged it was painful to watch.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Bob Costas didn’t start commenting until the parade of nations part. He quickly made a joke at the expense of North Korea.
During the whole show part it was the execrable Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira.
The NHS is our problem as our vaunted leftists point to the utopian NHS as the pinnacle of health care. Our system needs to be improved, but complete nationalization is simply not who we are.
I don't know if you saw any of the NBC feed of the opening ceremonies, but Matt Lauer immediately started opining on the pride the Brits have in their NHS while we pitiful Americans squabble over the socialist wonders that could be ours...it was pathetic and pure, blatant propaganda.
I am torn with this one. With the doctors and nurses dancing instead of providing patient care the morbidity rate at the NHS hospitals may have declined. They are notorious for actively killing patients over there.
The few voices of reason in the comments there got voted down....no reasoning with some people I guess.
Haven't any of these allegedly smart "intellectuals" ever asked themselves why millions of people fled farms to go to dirty and dangerous cities to work in the gritty early factories? Because it was better than what they left. Duh.
My antennae went up at the very beginning when they showed pictures of a procession of great Brits, beginning with Shakespeare. The next one was Newton, great, but the rest of the list was Charles Darwin, Jane Austin, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Are these really the people they revere? What about Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Thatcher? With all of the literary, scientific, and medical heavyweights they have had, not to mention great statesmen, they pick this mostly motley crew.
The pageantry was breath-taking, awesome during the agrarian and industrial revolution segments, but from there it deteriorated to texting and hooking up. Are these the great achievements of British endeavor? I understand that show business types never tire of patting themselves on the back, seeing themselves as the center of the universe, but are dead and dying Beatles really the apex of centuries of cultural evolution? It was just plain scarey, and we’ll be no better off if the country continues on its present course.
Lets sign up old rich commies Matt and Bad Hair Rug Bob for the NHS latest innovation called the Liverpool Pathway !
These old trolls are way passed their expiration dates .
Do us a favor and sign up for the Liverpool pathway !!
NHS is a disaster and England has the lowest cancer survivor rate in the first world .
England has Private hospitals for the elites like Mr Boyle.
Everyone knows that Utopia is an agrarian society. We should also return to trench warfare.
“All I will say to any Americans on here who will doubtless scream at me for defending the NHS, is that you needn’t concern yourselves with it. Fight your own politicians for the 100% privatized healthcare system that you all want in your country, the British NHS is not your problem.”
You miss the point, which leads to your comparison to the US army being off target. They spent 15 minutes of the olympic opening ceremony lionizing the NHS.
Had the US olympic opening ceremony spent 15 minutes glorifying the US army, that would most likely have raised some eyebrows as well.
Did you read the post I was responding to? The one in quotes is not the right one.
It was entertainment and could be interpreted as the NHS fiddles and dances while healthcare burns in a children’s fairytale.
I have to say as an Englishman myself that the NHS isn’t the horror story portrayed on here, but I do think it was an inappropriate subject for the opening ceremony.
I can only attribute it to Danny Boyle who has a rather romantic view of the working class and public sector.
Indeed it does. However, in America, if you can’t afford insurance, you are still dead, or if you are lucky, alive but bankrupt. Unless you have a media friendly sob-story that tugs on people’s heartstrings enough to persuade lots of people to donate for your treatment. God help you if you are not a cute kid or a war hero.
I have some experience with both systems, as I lived in the US with my family for a few years. We were fortunate enough to have very good insurance. When my sister became dangerously ill with pneumonia, she received top-rate treatment, but after a few days, we had to fight the insurance company to keep her in hospital because they reckoned that she should have been as right as rain after no more than a couple of days treatment. Fortunately, we got them to back off, but a couple of days later they had to bring the crash cart in because she was on the verge of going in to cardiac arrest.
One of our neighbours was plunged into poverty and hardship when he had a heart attack that meant he was off work and uninsurable for some time afterwards. Another neighbour (single mother with kids) was mentally ill and suicidal, but could not get treatment unless she had already been hospitalised after a suicide attempt. This was until my mother persuaded a doctor friend to get her on to a research program so that she could receive free treatment, which obviously isn’t an option for everyone.
These are some of the horror stories and potential horror stories that I have witnessed with America’s private healthcare system. I have not personally experienced anything like as appalling with the NHS, although I’m sure some people have had bad experiences.
It does irk me however, when Americans pick up on isolated horror stories connected with the NHS and then act as if medical malpractice is something uniquely evil to the NHS, and doesn’t exist at all under America’s private healthcare system, because it is rubbish. I know for a fact that people have died in the US because of inadequate treatment, often because they could not afford it. It is true that a lot of people do die on waiting lists in Britain because of the strain on resources, but I don’t see how this is any worse than dying in the US because you can’t afford the right treatment. At least if you are poor and on a waiting list, you have more hope than someone who can’t pony up the cash to get treated.
I had to laugh when that anti-NHS American politician waxed lyrical about how Prof Stephen Hawking would have been dead if he had been British, blissfully unaware that he was British, and credited the NHS with saving and and prolonging his life for over 40 years. I guess he must have heard the electronic computer he uses with its American accent and just assumed he was American...
Screw jumping sharks. NHS jumped the Olympic Flame.
8. All enjoy the fast track to the morgue.
That is old terminology, it’s now refered to as
The Moribund Ward.
If you do not have insurance in England, the prices are actually higher then what they are back in the states. Ask any visiting foreigner that needed treatment. Heard a story from a business associate. Prices were extremely high. Might have been due to that pound exchange rate back then, however. Was about 1.5 to 1.
Don’t really have a problem with foreigners having to pay for treatment. They haven’t spent their lives paying into the system.
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