#welovethenhs: How Twitter exposed the truth behind American lies

So in terms of making a loud political statement outside the traditional political bubble, it's a powerful tool. And while David Cameron's achingly desperate attempt to sound cool with his "too many twits make a tw*t" comment on Dad rock radio station Absolute must have sounded brilliant in his head, it only served to prove that neither he, nor his communications team, haven't quite grasped the power of Twitter.

On the other hand, Richard Bacon, the Radio Five Live presenter who used to be among the sniggering gang about Twitter, does get Twitter ... now.

His shows on Five Live are regularly influenced by Twitter - which makes sense. He runs phone-ins and if people are talking about it on Twitter, it follows that it should also interest his listeners.

And so yesterday a good chunk of his show was given over to a discussion about the NHS, or rather the right-wing campaign in America against free healthcare for all, into which the NHS has inadvertently become dragged.

The right-wing argument goes something like this: Free healthcare for all is bad because it is the first step on the road to a totalitarian state, and it'd be very Orwellian too. In Britain, people are denied treatment because the Government won't approve it, you have to wait a long time for treatment because everyone else is trying to get treatment as well and, oh yes, it's evil.

Putting aside the evil argument, clearly irrational but entirely expected from right-wing lobbyists who also felt the perfect solution to 9/11 was to charge, ham-fisted into conflicts in the Middle East instead and then lock up anyone who looked like a terrorist in Guantanamo Bay for almost a decade, how much of their train of thought on the NHS sounds like real life?

The NHS is far from perfect, granted. But some 50-odd years after its creation, do we now live in a totalitarian state?

How long are waiting lists in this country? Yes, we sometimes have to wait longer than we'd like, but here's a quick story for you. A relative of mine recently began treatment for cancer. Within three weeks of being diagnosed, the scans had been completed and the chemotherapy had begun. It hadn't cost my relative a penny. That's not bad in my books.

As for the point about the government determining treatment, that's true to an extent, but in context it makes sense. Very few cases involve treatment which is refused - in fact, there's an argument if you're a fan of Richard Littlejohn that says more "frivolous" treatments should be dropped - and that's normally because government-appointed medical experts are convinced of the case for using it.

But all of the above fall into insignificance against the fact that, in the UK, if we fall ill, we're treated: for free. There's no agonising paying for the chemotherapy if you get cancer, no doctor asking for your medical insurance details as you arrive in a hospital's ER department.

And crucially, if you don't like the service on the NHS you can always go private - if you can afford it. IF you can afford it, you can go an argue to your private insurance provider that the drug the NHS isn't convinced of will save your life. Just like you can in America.

To the best of my knowledge - and I have to admit, a lot of my knowledge of the American healthcare debate has been gleaned Fox News, whose concept of fair, accurate and balanced journalism appears to be far removed from what I was taught a college here - free healthcare for all in America won't suddenly stop people accessing private medical support.

In fact, Barack Obama isn't proposing an NHS for America at all. He's proposing a service for those who can't afford it or who are underinsured - around 75 million people in total.

And this is, from watching Fox News, where America's Republicans come from in terms of their hatred of this scheme. They hate equality, they hate the notion that, in at least one part of American life, there won't be a segregation between the haves and have nots.

Their warped view of the American Dream is that because they have money, they should have special privileges, and those without should go without. It's their way of retaining a sense of power, and a sense of control. It's a thought process which resulted in an ignorant, tongue-tied but very rich fool from Texas spending eight years in the White House.

Their campaign has nothing to do with healthcare and concerns about a poorer service than is currently on offer. It's more to do with money - and the fact that there will probably be higher taxes further down the line to pay for it.

But ask any Briton if they'd trade in the NHS for tax cuts and, regardless of our concerns about bloated management structures, occasionally unclean wards and rising parking charges, and 99% will instantly say no.

I'm pretty certain that any Americans taken ill while visiting the UK, and accessing the best the NHS has to offer as a result, would probably agree too.

And that's why I mention Twitter. Without Twitter, many of the arguments about the NHS from the American right-wingers would have gone unanswered. At best, an Andy Burnham-type character would have gone on US TV to defend the NHS.

Without Twitter, America wouldn't have clocked on to the groundswell of public opinion in the UK about the NHS, triggered by the right-wing comments. The result has been the hash-tag #welovetheNHS.

From thousands of miles away, Britons have had their say on a debate which was in danger of being distorted by a bunch of right-wingers who know the best way to cling on to power and control is to deny access to others.

That's democracy in action. And we've got Twitter to thank for it. Who's the tw*t now, David Cameron?