Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Universal Healthcare doesn't work

"My dad worked all his life, he was a taxpayer all his life, and the one time he wanted something out of the system he was let down badly by it."
So says Fraser Mosley, son of John Mosley, 65, Todwick, Sheffield, England. The elder Mr. Mosley died the day after his scheduled heart surgery was canceled because the surgeon was ill. The NHS (National Health Service) in Britain doesn't have enough surgeons available to send in a replacement.

Here in the United States, where medical costs are, as we know, sky-high, such an occurrence would be almost unheard of. After the expense of scheduling an operating theater, anesthesiologist, assistants, nurses, recovery room space, medicines and bed space, the hospital and insurance company involved would have moved heaven and earth to find another surgeon. If one does a little research on the National Health Services in Great Britain and Canada or the fiasco here in Tennessee, just to mention a few, these tales of horror are more than common.

The British and Canadians are not a stupid people. Neither are they a dirt poor people. However, their government controlled and available-to-all-for-free health care services don't work. Health care is not much less expensive in Britain or Canada than it is here. The governments just can't pay for it. Hence, the patients don't receive the quality of care in those countries that they receive here. So death by convenience is not that uncommon. It would have been inconvenient for the NHS to have scrambled for another surgeon, so one wasn't found. I don't think that the national health care services have to pay for funerals. Draw your own conclusions.

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