Great Moments in Socialized Medicine: From London’s Daily Mail:
A grandmother whose life is being ruined by a debilitating condition says she has been told that she cannot have an operation that could help her.
Jennifer Lane suffers from such extreme and uncontrollable shaking that she struggles to hold her baby grandson.
Mrs Lane, 52, says she was refused surgery for the brain condition dystonia by one health authority, despite the treatment being available to patients living a few streets away in another health area.
She lives in Spondon, just inside the area covered by NHS Derby City.
It has told her she cannot have the £30,000 [$46,000] operation because it does not believe it could dramatically improve her condition.
Mrs Lane lives just 200 metres [2.2 football fields] away from the area covered by NHS Derbyshire County, which has funded three such operations.
Mrs. Lane, this is your lucky day! According to former Enron adviser Paul Krugman, "in Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false."
I sent the above to a friend, his response was the following:
So how is this different from america where all the time people pass up needed surgeries because they have no health insurance or because the insurance they have won’t pay for it?
So, I enlightened him…
Wow. A teaching opportunity:
- Because it’s the government making the decision, not an individual.
- Because while there may be some people passing up surgery in our society, most people have options; under socialized medicine it’s monopoly, i.e. "no options."
- Because professional medical care is a luxury, not a "right."
- Because everyone in society is not forced to subsidize the medical problems of others, especially those who have made poor life decisions that have brought them to and kept them in poverty and often ignorance.
- Because doctors under socialized medicine are forced to work for whatever government pays them, thus reducing the number of doctors.
- Because doctors under socialized medicine are forced to work for whatever government pays them, thus reducing the quality of doctors.
- Because doctors under socialized medicine are forced to work for whatever government pays them, thus eliminating the incentive to work hard.
- Because doctors under socialized medicine are forced to work for whatever government pays them, thus eliminating the incentive to be excellent.
- Because doctors under socialized medicine are forced to work for whatever government pays them, thus eliminating any incentive to care.
- Because socialized medicine is a monopoly, and free people have the right to have choices.
- Because socialized medicine skews all values and incentives, resulting in awful care and the crumbling of an entire professional sector.
- Because under socialized medicine in Great Britain, they haven’t built a new hospital since something like 1946.
- Because under socialized medicine government bureaucrats make the decisions regarding your health (if you like that idea, have at it, but leave me out please).
- Because under socialized medicine there will be "death panels," i.e. panels of caring, expert, wise people who will decide whether YOU get any further government medical treatment or not (if you like that idea, have at it, but leave me out).
- Because under socialized medicine the government will be able to deny life-saving medical care to anyone whom they don’t like. Can you say Sarah Palin? Rush Limbaugh? Glenn Beck? Ann Coulter. (Oh yes, those are terrible people, granted, so they deserve to have the government deny them health care, right?)
Oh, I can go on and on. The above are just off the top of my head, i.e. obvious reasons that occur immediately to any rational, thinking person. If anyone would like a more extensive taste of what socialized medicine will mean, I urge you to just scan the information on this web page. You don’t have to read it, just look it over for fun. And recoil at the horror that is government-controlled medicine. FYI everyone!