Pennsylvania senator Arlen Specter bore the brunt of the outrage over the Congress’s plans for health reform at a town hall meeting he held in a rural conservative town in central Pennsylvania last night.

More than 1,000 activists representing both sides of the health care debate turned up for the meeting to be held in a room that only held 250.

Of those who were able to get in, nearly all of the 30 questioners opposed the Obama Administration’s reform efforts. In one particularly heated moment, Craig Anthony Miller, 59, stood just inches from Mr Specter’s face screaming at him and waving a copy of the US Constitution.

 “You are trampling our Constitution,” Mr Miller yelled while a cadre of Capitol police officers hovered nervously around him. “One day, God is going to stand before you, and He is going to judge you and the rest of your damn cronies [in the Congress], and then you will get your just desserts,” he ranted to loud applause before storming out of the room.

In Missouri, Senator Claire McCaskill faced stiff criticism from attendees at her own town hall meeting. But in a clever move, Ms McCaskill asked the largely elderly opponents of health reform to raise their hands if they received Medicare health coverage.

When hundreds admitted they did, she responded by asking how many of them would like to give up the government-sponsored plan. Nary a hand stayed raised.

The backlash against members of Congress by health reform opponents has reached a peak in recent weeks as the legislators have travelled to their home districts for the August recess.

Town hall meetings have been the preferred targets of the protesters whose tactics have ranged from disrupting meetings by screaming and chanting to physically threatening elected officials. In North Carolina, Democrat Brad Miller has refused to host town halls this month because he has received death threats.

Meanwhile, President Obama delivered an impassioned case for health care reform, reprising his own mother’s experience battling cancer as an intensely personal example of the need for an overhaul of America’s health care system.

At his own town hall meeting yesterday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Mr Obama emotionally recounted the battles with insurance companies his mother faced before her death more than a decade ago. “It’s... personal for me,˜ he said. “I will never forget,” he said, recalling the worry his mother had at the time.

“The insurance company was arguing that somehow she should have known that she had cancer when she took her new job, even though it hadn’t been diagnosed yet,” Obama told the largely sympathetic audience.

“If it could happen to her, it could happen to any one of us. And I’ve heard from so many Americans who have the same worries."

So why are some American’s so scared of the Health reform and why has the National Health Service in the UK become the butt of increasingly outlandish political attacks in the US as conservative campaigners rail against Britain's "socialist" system as part of a tussle to defeat Barack Obama's proposals for broader government involvement in healthcare?

Top-ranking Republicans have joined bloggers and well-funded free market organisations in scorning the NHS for its waiting lists and for "rationing" the availability of expensive treatments. As myths and half-truths circulate, British diplomats in the US are treading a delicate line in correcting falsehoods while trying to stay out of a vicious domestic dogfight over the future of American health policy. Slickly produced television advertisements trumpet the alleged failures of the NHS's 61-year tradition of tax-funded healthcare. To the dismay of British healthcare professionals, US critics have accused the service of putting an "Orwellian" financial cap on the value on human life, of allowing elderly people to die untreated and, in one case, for driving a despairing dental patient to mend his teeth with superglue.

Having seen his approval ratings drop, Obama is seeking to counter this conservative onslaught by taking his message to the public.

Last week, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, Chuck Grassley, took NHS-baiting to a newly emotive level by claiming that his ailing Democratic colleague, Edward Kennedy, would be left to die untreated from a brain tumour in Britain on the grounds that he would be considered too old to deserve treatment.

"I don't know for sure," said Grassley. "But I've heard several senators say that Ted Kennedy with a brain tumour, being 77 years old as opposed to being 37 years old, if he were in England, would not be treated for his disease, because end of life – when you get to be 77, your life is considered less valuable under those systems."

The degree of misinformation is causing dismay in NHS circles. Andrew Dillon, chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), pointed out that it was utterly false that Kennedy would be left untreated in Britain: "It is neither true nor is it anything you could extrapolate from anything we've ever recommended to the NHS."

Others in the US have accused Obama of trying to set up "death panels" to decide who should live and who should die, along the lines of Nice, which determines the cost-effectiveness of NHS drugs.

One right-leaning group, Conservatives for Patients' Rights, lists horror stories about British care on its website. An email widely circulated among US voters, of uncertain origin, claims that anyone over 59 in Britain is ineligible for treatment for heart disease.

The British embassy in Washington is quietly trying to counter inaccuracies. A spokesman said: "We're keeping a close eye on things and where there's a factually wrong statement, we will take the opportunity to correct people in private. That said, we don't want to get involved in a domestic debate."

A $1.2m television advertising campaign bankrolled by the conservative Club for Growth displays images of the union flag and Big Ben while intoning a figure of $22,750. A voiceover says: "In England, government health officials have decided that's how much six months of life is worth. If a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck."

The number is based on a ratio of £30,000 a year used by Nice in its assessment of whether drugs provide value for money. Dillon said this was one of many variables in determining cost-effectiveness of medicines. He said of his body's portrayal in the US: "It's very disappointing and it's not, obviously, the way in which Nice describes itself or the way in which we're perceived in the UK even among those who are disappointed or upset by our decisions."

On Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, the conservative commentator Sean Hannity recently alighted upon the case of Gordon Cook, a security manager from Merseyside, who used superglue to stick a loose crown into his gum because he was unable to find an NHS dentist. The cautionary tale, which was based on a Daily Mail report from 2006, prompted Hannity to warn his viewers: "If the Democrats have their way, get your superglue ready."

The broader tone of the US healthcare debate has become increasingly bitter. The former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin last week described president Obama's proposals as "evil", while the radio presenter Rush Limbaugh has compared a logo used for the White House's reform plans to a Nazi swastika. Hecklers have disrupted town hall meetings called to discuss the health reform plans.

David Levinthal, a spokesman for the nonpartisan Centre for Responsive Politics, said the sheer scale of the issue, which will affect the entire trajectory of US medical care, was arousing passions: "It's no surprise you have factions from every political stripe attempting to influence the debate and some of those groups are certainly playing to the deepest fears of Americans. There's been a great deal of documented disinformation propagated throughout the country." Defenders of Britain's system point out that the UK spends less per head on healthcare but has a higher life expectancy than the US. The World Health Organisation ranks Britain's healthcare as 18th in the world, while the US is in 37th place. The British Medical Association said a majority of Britain's doctors have consistently supported public provision of healthcare. A spokeswoman said the association's 140,000 members were sceptical about the US approach to medicine: "Doctors and the public here are appalled that there are so many people on the US who don't have proper access to healthcare. It's something we would find very, very shocking."

 The claim

Ted Kennedy, 77, would not be treated for his brain tumour if he was in Britain because he is too old – Charles Grassley, Republican senator from Iowa.

The response

Untrue, says the Department of Health. "There is no ban on anyone of any age receiving any treatment, " said a spokesman. "Whether to prescribe drugs or recommend surgery is rightly a clinical decision taken on a case by case basis."

The claim

Government health officials in England have decided that $22,750 (£14,000) is what six months' life is worth. Under their socialised system, if a medical treatment costs more, you're out of luck - Club for Growth

The response

The National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) decides whether new drugs represent value for money for the NHS in England and Wales. It replied: "This is a gross misrepresentation of how Nice applies health economics to try and address the central issue: how to allocate healthcare rationally within the context of limited healthcare resources. Nice assesses the cost of a treatment in terms of a cost-utility analysis which takes account of the quality adjusted life year – the amount and quality of extended life it is hoped the patient will gain. The current ceiling is £30,000 but exceptions are made."

The claim

In England, anyone over 59 years of age cannot receive heart repairs, stents or bypass because it is not covered as being too expensive and not needed – an anonymously authored, but widely circulated, email, largely sent to older voters

The response

Totally untrue. Growing numbers of patients over 65 with heart conditions are having surgery, including valve repairs and heart bypass surgery, says Professor Peter Weissberg, the British Heart Foundation's (BHF) medical director. For example, the average age at which people have a bypass operation has risen from 58 in 1991 to 66 in 2008.

The claim

Breast cancer kills 46% of its targets in Britain, compared with 25% in the US; prostate cancer kills 57% of the Britons it strikes, compared with 25% of American victims; Britain's heart attack fatality rate was 19.5% higher than America's in 2005 – Pacific Research Institute, a San Francisco-based thinktank

The response

Breast cancer does claim more lives, proportionally, here than in the US. According to the 2002 Globocan database run by the World Health Organisation's cancer advisers, 19.2 of every 100,000 Americans die of the disease, but 24.3 per 100,000 here die. On prostate cancer, a Lancet Oncology global study last year found that 91.9% of Americans with the disease were still alive after five years compared to just 51.1% in the UK. With heart attacks, 40% of Britons who suffer one die from it compared to 38% in the States – nowhere near the difference claimed.

The claim

In Britain, 40% of cancer patients are never able to see an oncologist; there is explicit rationing for services such as kidney dialysis, open heart surgery and care for the terminally ill – Conservatives for Patients' Rights

The response

"The claim that 40% of cancer patients are never able to see an oncologist comes from a 15-year-old study which is completely out of date. Since then we have had the Nice Improving Outcomes Guidance series and the NHS Cancer Plan for England, which has increased the number of cancer consultants and established specialist multidisciplinary teams," said Duleep Allirajah of Macmillan Cancer Support. However, "some people with serious kidney failure are unable to obtain dialysis on the NHS and die", said Tim Statham, chief executive of the National Kidney Federation. "Some parts of the NHS can't cope, because patient numbers are increasing by 6% a year, which is a huge burden. Of about 100 renal units in the UK, probably 20% are working at 100% capacity or above," he added. The claim about open heart surgery is not true, said the BHF's Weissberg. "There's no explicit rationing. Some people don't get treatment, but those decisions are made solely on the basis of clinical criteria and their risk of dying. We only operate on people who are likely to benefit and not die." The three main political parties agree that Britain provides good quality end-of-life care but that access to it can be patchy, depending on location and the patient's condition. The government is working to improve the situation.

The claim

In the UK, breast cancer survival rates are 11% lower than they are here in the US – Sue Myrick, a Republican congresswoman from North Carolina

The response

If anything the gap is wider than Myrick says. Breakthrough Breast Cancer cite two recent studies from Lancet Oncology. One says that 83.9% of women in the US diagnosed with breast cancer between 1990-94 lived for at least five years compared to 69.7% in the UK – a 14.2% difference. The second showed that, among women diagnosed with the disease in 2000-02, 90.1% in the States survived for at least five years whereas in England it was 77.8% – a 12.3% gap.

The claim

The British healthcare system is infamous for denying state-of-the-art drugs to cancer patients – National Center for Policy Analysis

The response

Nice has recently reformed its procedures after a series of controversies over the unavailability of certain cancer treatments. "The vast majority of new cancer drugs are made available to patients with notable exceptions, such as the likely rejection of several new kidney cancer drugs," said Allirajah of Macmillan Cancer Support. "However, the Nice process does need reforming to ensure decisions are made more quickly and patients' quality of life is taken more into account."

The claim

The British NHS "does not allow" women under 25 to receive screening for cervical cancer – Jim DeMint, Republican senator from South Carolina

The response

The NHS invites women in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to attend for cervical cancer screening from 20 upwards. But in England screening for the disease starts at 25. That policy was recently reviewed and remains unchanged.

So should you be scared? Shouldn't health care be available to ALL? Don't forget you can still get PRIVATE health care in UK, as i'm sure still is the case in the US. If you contribute to a health plan or through your monthly wage, then if you are unfortunate and have to go to hospital... then it will be like a four star hotel, Ala Carte menu and very attentive nurses.....