Would Ted Kennedy Get Medical Care in England?

LONDON, Aug. 13, 2009 — -- England's National Health Service has always been a political punching bag, but usually, the jabs are aimed at British politicians, and they are most often thrown by the English electorate.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley's recent off-the-cuff remarks in which he mentioned that he had heard that Sen. Ted Kennedy might not get care for his brain tumor in England, have put the English health system into a very different kind of fight. Now, the English are facing off against the U.S. political right.

Usually, international learning is vital to crafting strong policies. However, in the current health care debate, looking across the pond is actually making American and English health policy worse. Instead of looking at what we can learn from each other, both countries are so paralyzed by each other's faults that neither country can move forward.

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The British are intuitively skeptical about the U.S. health care system. The English system was founded on two principles: that coverage was comprehensive and that care was free and not based on ability to pay. The English simply cannot understand the idea that an estimated 46 million Americans go without insurance coverage.

However, they do not realize that the 46 million uninsured Americans statistic is misleading. While un- and underinsurance are indeed huge problems in the United States, the 46 million tally includes individuals who are without insurance for very short periods of time. Further, many of the uninsured are under 30 years old, a surprising number are making more than $50,000 annually and almost a third are already eligible but choose not to enroll in federal coverage.