Britain's government Death Panels keep disabled waiting longer, less efficient than than America's private insurance Death Panels

The private insurance company Guardian deemed its reported 2008 profit margin of 4.2% too slim, and hired private investigators to look for any reason to drop customers with muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, brain injury, and paralysis.  When this strategy failed, Guardian's Death Panels-- which referred to its disabled customers as "dogs" and "trainwrecks" in internal memos released by court order --launched its "Moving Forward" campaign to drop their coverage anyway.  Ian Pearl, a man born with muscular dystrophy who became ventillator-dependent in 1991, and requires constant nursing care to keep him alive, writes that for him this is a death sentence.  The private insurance Death Panels will drop his coverage effective December 1, 2009 -- a mere 18 years after Pearl became dependent on full-time nursing care.

Meanwhile, British physicist Stephen Hawking continues to wait for his government-issued execution orders.  Like Pearl, Hawking was born with muscular dystrophy.  But in Britain, the government-run Death Panels are slow and inefficient by American standards, and long death sentence wait times are common.  Hawking has been waiting for Death Panel review for nearly 24 years since he became dependent on full-time nursing care for survival. 

Referring to the British National Health System (NHS), Hawking blamed government ineptitude for the delay.  "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS," he said. "I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."