by Beth Stebner –
Americans have reacted with confusion to the glorification of free universal health care in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony as the country continues to be divided by the debate over its own healthcare system.
Last night’s spectacular $42million, the brainchild of Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle, included a segment where dozens of skipping nurses and children in pajamas leaping acrobatically on massive hospital beds, with a large ‘NHS’ displayed.
It was a celebration of Britain’s national health service, which has provided free taxpayer-funded health care to everyone in the country since its foundation after the Second World War.
But some commentators, including the Mark Sappenfield of the Christian Science Monitor, have suggested that the Opening Ceremony director Danny Boyle may have been sending a coded message to American voters.
He wrote: ‘It is hard to escape at least some small sense of advocacy in Boyle’s second act, particularly after a cigar-chomping elite let loose the gluttony of unchecked industry on the idyllic English countryside in the first act. This was, it seemed, an opening ceremony for the 99 per cent.’
Before the ceremony, the Slumdog Millionaire director defended his decision to feature the NHS prominently in the show. He told reporters that he chose to feature it because ‘everyone is aware of how important the NHS is to everybody in this country.’ [Yeah right, his socialist sympathies had nothing to do with it!]
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HT: Mail Online (read full article)
