Posted on 01/18/2011 8:13:55 PM PST by Kaslin
Medicine: As the House moves to repeal the nationalization of health care, Britain plans to take a scalpel to its National Health Service, opening it up to competition and letting doctors and patients call the shots.
It was both a stunning admission and a damning indictment of socialized medicine when British Prime Minister David Cameron in effect admitted that the holy grail of nationalized health care, the British National Health Service (NHS), was broken and in need of fixing.
In a speech outlining public-sector reforms to be introduced in a bill Wednesday, Cameron promised to get rid of "top-down, command-and-control bureaucracy and targets" and that the NHS would not be exempt from those reforms.
While critics of his plan are already saying it could lead to backdoor privatization of the NHS, Cameron stopped short of suggesting that is his aim. Founded in 1948, NHS could be called the "third rail" of British politics akin to our Social Security.
Indeed, Cameron on Monday said "a free NHS at the point of use, for everybody" was "part of Britain, part of Britishness." Once people become convinced there is such a thing as a free lunch, they become dependent on it, even if it's not free.
Still the reforms are staggering and point Britain in a different direction than we are going with ObamaCare. Cameron proposes giving control over management to family practitioners rather than bureaucrats, and allowing private companies, charities and social enterprises to bid for contracts within the public health service.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
“Prime Minister David Cameron in effect admitted that the holy grail of nationalized health care, the British National Health Service (NHS), was broken and in need of fixing.”
Dr.Donald Berwick must be crushed to learn this. After all, his enthusiasm for this badly broken system was pretty over the top: he was so “romantic” about the NHS that he both professed to “love” it AND claimed was “not just a national treasure, it is a global treasure” http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamas-nominee-be-medicaremedicaid-chief-britains-nhs-i-love-it
In short, the good doctor was DEAD WRONG in his assessment of the NHS, yet it is this clown who Obama has put in charge of U.S. health care. Just one more reason why Obamacare needs to be repealed ASAP. Anything short of full repeal is going to give this clown way more power over health care than most sensible Americans would ever want.
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