Under the oppression of socialized medicine via a president Obama, our freedom to apply safe and effective unconventional alternative health care would be limited further.
10 says that the USA will not be transferrring to a system comparable to (as in 'as socialist as') the UK's NHS over the next eight years. Of course, I'm sure they said that here in in 1944, and they would have been wrong.
So let's say that they do that.
Does that mean a patient in the UK has to use the NHS?
No. You can go private as your finances allow. I have a private dentist, and I get to choose the Dentist that suits my needs (TVs on the ceiling for the win, as they say) and who wants to keep me as a patient (customer care, hooray!).
I can't afford more broad medical coverage at the moment, but the NHS has been excellent the several times I've needed to use them. In the past, when I was a sporty type of person living with middle class parents, I was covered privately and had a surgical operation and several independent physiotherapy sessions courtesy of
BUPA.
There are plenty of private alternative medicine peddlers in the UK, some of them with
high street branches. There is only one proviso: Trading Standards mean that if in order to sell something you claim it does something - you have to demonstrate that it does indeed do that something. I realize the terrible burden this basic consumer protection is for conmen, snake oil salesman and dangerous quacks, but genuine purveyors of remedies and cures from the 'alternate' or 'holistic' medical community need not fear.
And of course, as previously mentioned, the
NHS deals with all sorts of unusual medical practices:
quote:
Homeopathy has been available on the NHS since the Health Service first began in 1948.
There are five NHS homeopathic hospitals in the NHS and qualified homeopathic doctors work in many other settings such as community-based clinics, general and private practices.
It seems that under the terrible oppression of socialized medicine, alternative therapies has thrived quite well.
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