Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Awake God | She Must Have Provoked That Honda S… »

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Politics / Media RE: Who Are These People?

Posted by Grant Brissey on Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 4:30 PM

This also works as a Headline of the Day: Stephen Hawking both British and not dead

In perhaps the most amusing effort to discredit US President Barack Obama's plan for nationalized health care—if not the most ridiculous—US financial newspaper Investor's Business Daily has said that if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead.

"The controlling of medical costs in countries such as Britain through rationing, and the health consequences thereof, are legendary," read a recent editorial from the paper. "The stories of people dying on a waiting list or being denied altogether read like a horror script...
"People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the UK, where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless."

"I wouldn’t be here today if it were not for the NHS," Hawking told The Guardian. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

Comments (13) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Articles like this are not intended for the kind of people who know who Hawkings is or, for that matter, can find the UK on a map.

Posted by Ackham on August 12, 2009 at 4:37 PM

Reminds me of the Mark Twain quote "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." Something like that - I hope Dr. Hawking got a laugh out of reports that he would be doomed in his home country while he read the papers this morning.

Posted by Luckier on August 12, 2009 at 4:42 PM

the phrase we are looking for regarding Hawking's comment is, "ah snap!"

Posted by au_gout on August 12, 2009 at 4:47 PM

@3 That's even more hilarious if you imagine it in the robo-voice thingy Hawkings uses.

Posted by Ackham on August 12, 2009 at 4:52 PM

If they can't even get right on which continent Stephen Hawkins lives, and breathes (with the help of the NHS), how can I trust them on whether or not Obama will kill my granny?

Ah fuck it, all three of my granny's are dead anyway, I'll go for the healthcare reform, Alex.

(Also had a stepgrandmother, thankyewkindly, who benefited much from Medicare. I'm sure she'd be happy for me to have healthcare, too.)

Posted by judybrowni on August 12, 2009 at 5:04 PM

If Hawking lived in the US, he would have been bankrupted by his illness, possibly homeless, a huge burden on hopelessly inadequate welfare provision, and certainly dead by now. No ALS patient has EVER been kept alive and productive anywhere near that long in the USA.

Posted by Fnarf

on August 12, 2009 at 5:49 PM

IBD has deleted the the bit about Hawking (with an editor's note that implies they were just clearing up a small factual error) but left all the "NHS is a grandma-killing nightmare of rationing" stuff.
Classy.

Posted by krzysz on August 12, 2009 at 6:20 PM

I'm sure nobody with private insurance like we have in the U.S. ever died because the insurance company either denied their claim or took so long processing it that they died in the interim. I mean, it's not as if insurance companies have a financial incentive to deny care to the ill.

Posted by Florence Nightingale on August 12, 2009 at 9:55 PM

I think this story is emblematic of the tenor of the debate going on in this Country. So, I made a little video to highlight this silly little episode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fcMVCdY2…

Posted by Timothy on August 12, 2009 at 10:55 PM

Since we don't know what causes ALS, an insurance company in the US would probably just deny all of his treatment claims by declaring his disease a "pre-existing condition".

That's the flip side to genetic research supposedly determining that certain people are more likely to develop cancers or other fatal conditions due to their genes.

Posted by Sir Vic on August 13, 2009 at 8:40 AM