Sick of Being Doctors

Investors Business Daily ^ | 3 July 2007 | Editorial

[maica]

At last count, five of the eight suspects arrested in connection with the recent Islamist terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow are doctors. Two more might be medical students. As far as we can tell, all were born outside of Britain.

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Of the 277,000 doctors registered to practice in Great Britain's General Medical Council, the BBC reports, roughly 128,000 of them — 46% — were trained outside the European Union. Four years ago, more than two-thirds of physicians registered to practice in the United Kingdom were from overseas. Great Britain has little choice but to import physicians. Brits, it seems, don't want to be doctors like they once did. The socialist National Health Service is constantly trying to fill shortages and cannot operate without doctors from abroad.

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Even British doctors who have practiced for years are choosing the latter. Because the government runs the health care system,U.K. doctors are beset with issues — such as cost cuts, facility centralization — with which they shouldn't have to deal.

Worse, they must ration care. When they don't make the decisions about who is treated and when, bureaucrats do. In a system where free case leads to unfettered demand, rationing — in the words of Dr. Alex Smallwood of the British Medical Association, "has become a necessary evil."

Salaries are rationed as well. British doctors are paid like the civil servants they are, which is to say they have a ceiling much lower than that of other professionals, most of whom are less educated. Even extraordinary people dedicated to saving lives and healing bodies are going to want to be fairly compensated for their effort.

The outlook for British physicians is so bleak that 54% say morale is low while a mere 2% rate it as excellent.

Michael Moore, naturally, doesn't talk about Britain's health care disaster in his new documentary, "Sicko." Nor will Americans hear much about it from the Democratic candidates clamoring to force socialist medicine on this country. Call it the rationing of truth.

[cgbg]

Hillary, "the smartest woman in America" knows the pathetic state of medicine under socialism.

She doesn't care about doctors, she dosen't care about average citizens.

She believes they were born to be controlled by the state--and, if she gets her wish then she will be able to say, like Louis IV, "l'etat, c'est moi" (I am the state.).

:-(

[BunnySlippers]

Bump