The UK’s NHS is in a meltdown. I didn’t blog it due to traveling, but did you see the story that people are pulling their own teeth because they can’t get good dental care through the NHS? And now, apparently record numbers of Brits are traveling abroad for health care because they can’t get it at home. From the Telegraph story:
Thousands of “health tourists” are going as far as India, Malaysia and South Africa for major operations – such is their despair over the quality of health services.
The first survey of Britons opting for treatment overseas shows that fears of hospital infections and frustration with NHS waiting lists are fuelling the increasing trend.
More than 70,000 Britons will have treatment abroad this year—a figure that is forecast to rise to almost 200,000 by the end of the decade. Patients needing major heart surgery, hip operations and cataracts are using the internet to book operations to be carried out thousands of miles away.
We need to reform our system, to be sure. But not in that direction. We need a private sector health care system supplemented by a federal safety net. In this regard, although I haven’t read it closely yet, that seems to be the approach taken by Hillary Clinton.
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
