I love the Olympics! The summer Olympics is my favorite
because my wife and two kids are swimmers and I am a USA swimming official. As
a family we have spent hundreds of hours on pool decks practicing and competing
in a great sport.
I know politics is part of the Olympics although I wish it
wasn’t, but the stark reality is the Olympics offers country’s the opportunity
to highlight the things they are proud of. That is why I was so surprised to
see a reference to Britain’s National Health Services. I really enjoyed most of
the opening ceremonies up until that point where the director took the audience
in a very strange direction by combining institutional type beds and nurses,
basically reminding everyone why we have tried so hard to move from anything
institutional, and then throwing in some children’s nightmares. I am not sure
what we were supposed to feel about that part of the program but I know it was
very depressing to watch. It also left us a bit baffled as to why this was part
of the opening ceremony?
The reality is that the healthcare system in Britain is
great unless you are sick and old. And in reality, when we are sick and old is
when we need the most from our healthcare system. The stories are abundant about
the elderly being denied care because they are not a “good investment” of
healthcare dollars, and the waiting lists for “routine” (what we consider
routine but will change under Obamacare) services are months and years long.
The British have a long history of improving the conditions
throughout the world through their long list of industrial improvements, and
the birthplace of our Founding Fathers. The British have a long history of
educational advancements and great universities, command of the seas and the
development of global trade. I wish the director would have spent more time on
those areas and left the socialized medicine is great stick out of the
ceremony.
We are bombarded enough about politics especially in a
presidential election season. It would have been nice to have been spared the
NHS is great lie on such a grand scale…
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