The United Kingdom's National Health Service, which celebrated its 70th anniversary on July 5, is imploding.
Vacancies for doctor and nurse positions have reached all-time highs. Patients are facing interminable waits for care as a result. This August, a record number of Britons languished more than 12 hours in emergency rooms. In July, the share of cancer patients who waited more than two months to receive treatment soared.
Yet enthusiasm for government-run, single-payer health care continues to build in the United States. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that 70 percent of Americans now support Medicare for All. Virtually all the major candidates for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020 have come out in favor of banning private insurance coverage and implementing a single-payer system instead.I have a whole post category for Killed By Socialized Medicine which goes way, way back. And this sums the wretched NHS up, for the dim bulbs on these shores who want to replicate it here:
— Sal the Agorist (@SallyMayweather) April 28, 2018
Actually, this really does sum up the situation. The issue isn't healthcare, the issue is control. Statist pricks want life and death control over the population, the better to keep them in line.
Besides the obvious effort for control, the quagmire of bureaucracy destroys any efficiency. How these two things are ignored by supposedly intelligent people is beyond me. Any government is a poor steward of the public, and Socialized medicine is a shining example of this poor stewardship.
ReplyDeleteAn intelligently run national health care system would be ideal. Alas, neither the people running it nor the people using it have a tendency to be rational in matters relating to health. Or too often nonsensical fluff that is not much related to actual outcomes.
ReplyDeleteI leave the Brexit matter to my UK mates. But one criticism of it that is probably true, is that European workers have come to dominate the UK health care system. And prospects of a hard Brexit are no doubt making positions harder to fill with nurses and technicians from Other Places.
Of course an intelligently run system would make provisions to staff their facilities without a need for outsourcing (which in health care is often expensive and of less that top notch quality). See above.
T. Wolter
It's sad to read the reply tweets to Sal in that link. Defending the NHS's indefensible treatment of Alfie Evans for one, and then posting misleading statistics. "1 in 4 adults with non-group coverage had to go without certain treatments" and implying that means "1 in 4 adults".
ReplyDeleteThe one defending the Alfie Evans treatment is that the NHS cared for Alfie better than the parents could have, when that's patently false. "The British National Health Service is insisting that Alfie be allowed to die with dignity - although reports from people who have seen the room say they're not even allowing him to live with dignity. Stories and photos come back showing the hospital staff leaves him to sleep in urine, and that mold grows in his breathing tubes."
And when people complain it cost too much to keep Alfie alive, that ignores that the Italian government granted him Italian citizenship and offered him treatment there. Plus, Pope Francis offered to intervene, even leaving an aircraft in the UK to take Alfie to Italy. Either of those would have dropped NHS cost to zero.
People loves them being slaves to a big government.
Tim, the Iron Law of Bureaucracy applies to even intelligently run systems. Inertia and and entropy accumulate, and you end up with the VA system or the NHS as the equilibrium state.
ReplyDeleteSiGraybeard, you do a good job pointing out the infuriating thing about the Alfie Evans situation - the government used police power to keep Alfie's parents from taking him to other places where doctors were willing to treat him. There's simply no moral authority left in the NHS after that, it's clear that the NHS is run by the green eyeshade types and that a cost/benefit calculation is made for each of Her Majesty's subjects.
Subjects, not citizens.