Poor idea (From The Northern Echo)

Poor idea

5:34pm Wednesday 15th February 2012 in Letters

ANYONE who thinks that the Government’s health reforms are a good idea should spare a thought for the poor in the US.

More than 50m Americans have no health insurance cover at all, because they can’t afford it. A recent BBC Panorama interviewed a working man on a low income who needed a hernia operation but couldn’t pay the $20,000 hospital bill.

He has been told that if he doesn’t get medical treatment then the hernia will turn gangrenous.

Sadly, it is likely he will die in the near future, because he is poor.

During a recent Republican Presidential debate on US TV each of the five candidates was asked whether a man who had no health insurance should be treated if he arrived at a hospital in a coma. All five of them avoided answering the question.

Then the TV reporter asked whether the person should be allowed to die and members of the audience joyfully cried out “yes”.

The Labour Party created the NHS and it, together with the trade union movement, must defend it. Otherwise we will have situation like America where the rich gleefully allow working people to die when they are no longer fit enough to work.

John Gilmore Bishop Auckland.