The Hot File

I couldn’t help but notice the awfully well-decorated house of Pauline McAreavy, who was quoted in yesterday’s NYTimes article, saying she wishes there had been more immediate change under Obama.  From the looks of your digs Pauline, I wouldn’t want to change too much!

Politico reports today that the West Wing is “fired up” this morning after getting wind of Cheney’s remarks at the Center for Security Policy Wednesday night.

“The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger. Make no mistake: Signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.”

Gibbs has already torn into Cheney at a WH press conference today.  But, aside from the fact that Cheney and Bush let a proposal to increase troops in Afghanistan sit on their desks for 8 months, isn’t the sheer act of publically second guessing your current Commander-in-Chief doing just that — emboldening the enemy?

Maybe Cheney should take notes from a once reviled Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara.  In an interview on Charlie Rose with director Errol Morris shortly before McNamara died, the former Secretary of Defense, under much pressure from Rose and Morris, refrained from commenting or critiquing the way the Bush administration was handling the war in Iraq.  An exasperated Rose even called McNamara’s refusals to weigh in on the war debate “silly”.  McNamara maintained that weighing in or showing public criticism would embolden the enemy.

Watch the full interview here…really fascinating and gets pretty uncomfortable around 14:30!

“the hole they stitched up in Glenn Beck’s ass hasn’t healed enough for him to stop talking out of it.”

I’m working on another man on the street interview from London…asking Brits what they think of NHS (the UK’s national health service) and if they would prefer the US healthcare system instead.  Of the responses I’ve been able to get on camera so far, they are overwhelmingly positive.  So positive, in fact, that my report may end up sounding a bit one-sided, which is not my intention.  Now, I fear the conservative commenter wrath that will inevitably ensue on YouTube (ugh).  Anyway, while I continue to work on interviews and editing, I figured I could add some of my own experience with NHS since I moved to London.  Like most Americans exposed to anti-socialist rants on the poor quality of socialized healthcare, I was a bit wary and skeptical.   Would I be waiting in line for hours?  Could I trust the quality of care? Would the system be unnavigable and complicated?  Fortunately, my experience was quite the contrary.

Before leaving New York I had one week where I would be uninsured.  I took the risk figuring it was only a week and resolving to look both ways before carefully crossing the street.  The day after I finished at MSNBC, ending all claims to benefits, I received a call from my doctor that I would need an emergency procedure on a health condition I had been monitoring for about 13 months.  The procedure and the lab results would cost me over $800.  If they had only called a day earlier, I would have still been covered under my GE benefits.  Now I was paying almost $1,000 out of pocket.  The timing could not have been worse.  Anyway,  I got this procedure done and my US doctor advised me to get a GP set up right away in London who would then help me sort out the next steps for my second, follow-up operation.

When I got to the UK, I found that my local clinic was about a 6 minute walk from my flat.  I made an appointment in person (you can make them over the phone as well) and received a confirmation letter in the mail a few days later.  On the day of the appointment which was around 10 am, I walked to my clinic.  Most clinics have a computerized touch screen check-in.  You just punch in your date of birth and a message appears telling you that your doctor has been alerted of your arrival.  I sat in the waiting room for about 5 minutes before my doctor, not a nurse, came out to greet me.  He took me back to his office where he immediately began creating a computerized file on my health background, asking me questions about my last procedure and typing everything into my new record.   He forwarded that information on to the specialist I had to see for my follow up operation and advised me that I would be receiving the date and time of my next appointment in the mail shortly.  I then asked him about possibly seeing someone to talk to about moving to a new country and dealing with the stress of this health condition.  Instead of my doctor giving me a list of local therapists to call myself, he rang up a colleague to see if she had free time.  He arranged for a trial session on the spot.

A few days later I received the appointment time and date for my operation in the mail at a hospital a few blocks from my workplace.  The wait time there was a bit longer, perhaps 20-25 minutes.  The operaton lasted slightly longer than the one back home, but the doctor and nurse were incredibly friendly, and on the whole, the experience was a lot more pleasant than my October operation.  I’m fine now and have (just recently) paid off the $700 bill from nearly a year ago.

I’ll be honest, it feels a bit weird to open up about my health on this blog, but I felt it was important to share this after reading and watching some of the anti-healthcare reform initiatives spreading back home.  The system is efficient, provides satisfactory care and it’s FREE.  Totaling up everything I’ve had done since my arrival here, I probably would have had to pay around $2,000 back home, which explains the positive feedback from my man on the street interviews.  It’s hard to slag off a system that’s virtually free (all prescriptions are £6 and birth control is free).  Now, I don’t expect to convert any anti-reformers out there, but I do hope this post dispels at least some of the misconceptions  about government-run healthcare.

Stay tuned for the man on the street video…hope you enjoy it!