The Right Coast

January 02, 2006
 
National Health Service reforms
By Tom Smith

NHS is planning to provide some choice by 2008. Maybe they should start calling it Britistan. Six months waiting for a medical procedure as a goal?! The only procedure you would wait 6 months for in the US is a tummy tuck from the hottest plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, if that. Even if you were indigent, if you needed a surgery for a life threatening condition, you would be very unlikely to have to wait six months in the US. Six months is a "better or dead" time frame. If you can wait six months, you probably won't need the procedure in any event. Maybe that's why NHS uses it. In any event, the UK should be on your list of countries that before travelling to, you buy your gold plated medical evacuation insurance. They probably won't kill you while you are waiting for the private jet ambulance to whisk you to Green Hospital-La Jolla or the Mayo Clinic. Beyond that, you're on your own.