A False Idol

Ted Bromund / September 07, 2009

The National Health Service is like a deity in Britain. Or so we are told. Irish actor and director, Graham Linehan – a very funny man – has taken to defending the NHS by saying that American criticisms of it are “like if you criticize your parents. You can do it – but if anyone else criticized them you’d murder them.” That’s not going to keep life expectancies up. The Economist, for its part, offers up the plea “God save the NHS.” So much for the Queen, apparently.

There is something distinctly off-putting in this worshipful attitude. The NHS is not the English Bill of Rights, or the First Amendment. It is not a statement of eternal truths. It is a bureaucratic organization intended to serve a particular purpose. If it does not serve that purpose well, then it should be changed. The outraged responses to American – and British – criticisms of the NHS have a calculated political purpose: to reject the very thought that the government should not be responsible for running the entire health care system. (more…)