Comments by "Cinderball" (@cinderball1135) on "Vox"
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You had me until you started going into the idea that the UK system is somehow worse than the US because occasionally it throws up a problem with getting a drug approved for use on the NHS.
As a kid, I grew up with asthma. Guess how much it cost my parents. If you guessed zero, you would be correct. For the overwhelming majority of people, it's a no-brainer. The NHS is simply a better way of doing things than relying on health insurance. Health insurance exists for one purpose - to facilitate price gouging. The implication you wrapped in there, about foreigners somehow being subsidised by American consumers, is frankly laughable - almost Trumpian in its provocativeness, and its lazy disregard for facts.
The fact of the matter is that yes, medical research is expensive - but if you think Big Pharma isn't making a killing by selling these drugs, you are gravely mistaken. In the UK, and in other countries, we are simply buying drugs at a price which is closer to cost. The companies still make a profit, but they're not robbing sick people blind. This is not up to your usual editorial standard, Vox, and I think you should reevaluate your position on this issue.
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We actually have a similar problem with tabloid journalism here in the UK with papers like The Telegraph, The Sun and The Daily Mail.
They essentially work as mouthpieces to major political parties, and then more "respectable" broadsheet journalists are forced to take the story seriously, because it's become a legitimate controversy (and controversies sell papers). And, weirdly, it's once again a Conservative-leaning base of hacks that is producing this garbage in the first place. All I can think is that, on a fundamental level, Conservative and Nationalist readers are far less proficient when it comes to critical thinking - far less likely to call bullshit when a story is too convenient or too salacious to be true. So the story gets picked up and widely disseminated, and soon comes to suffocate all other conversation that's being had in the country. And the mere effect that "a lot of people are talking about" something can create the impression that there's a real story, that there's a kernel of truth. "It's true enough."
Big example: before the Referendum here in the UK - before the campaigns of Vote Leave and what have you - polls showed that people in the UK overwhelmingly did not care about the EU in either direction. Now, it's the biggest story of the day, and it's ended two Prime Ministers' careers, and is well on its way to ending the next Prime Minister's, before they've even taken the job. Why? Because millions of people bought into this inescapable narrative that "the people have spoken" and "democracy is being betrayed".
Immoderate tabloid journalism in the UK has led to a potential constitutional crisis - we are genuinely looking at the total breakdown of our party political system.
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