The right wing tabloid UK newspaper The Sun, which would surely be Palin’s read if she lived in the UK, reports on a twitter campaign in favour of the NHS:
TWITTER crashed yesterday as thousands of Brits defended the NHS after an attack by ex-US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
Disabled genius Professor Stephen Hawking led the way with an internet posting.
He wrote: “I wouldn’t be alive today if it weren’t for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high quality treatment without which I would not have survived.”
Palin, 45, who opposes President Barack Obama’s plan to introduce a British-style health scheme in America, described the NHS as a “death panel” which picks who gets treatment. She added: “Such a system is downright evil.”
But Brits hit back with Twitter stories of successful NHS care – causing the website to crash at 4pm.
One tweeter, JOR74, wrote: “If it weren’t for the NHS many members of my family and several friends’ children would not be alive today.”
Another, called mckelvie, wrote: “The NHS successfully treated my dad’s cancer.”
There are more details here and here, and a list of tweets in The Guardian.
Video footage on the BBC news last night showed an apparently normal woman suggesting Obama’s health plans would turn the US into China or Russia (presumably Soviet Russia in the lady’s mind). Eh? Obama’s health reforms will take the US no-where near the UK’s NHS system (even if that was a bad thing). It’s only provides an improved safety net for the poor, an attempt to make healthcare insurers deliver what it promises to its users, and some attempt to think about cost-effectiveness to ensure the US can have sustainable healthcare.
