Another example of how socialized medicine works is the way Princess Diana received treatment after her crash. French paramedics were on the scene fairly quickly but, because of socialized medicine, they had to decide which hospital to take her to for care. Under the French system, different hospitals are mandated to specialize in certain areas so the paramedics couldn’t just take her to the nearest hospital. They had to take her to “the right one.” So, while bureaucrats dithered, Diana lay at the scene of the crash, bleeding to death.
It is well known in the medical community that a trauma patient should be gotten to a care facility as fast as possible, preferably in the first 20-30 minutes after the victim’s wounds were received. It took French paramedics more than 90 minutes to get her the care she needed. Who knows if they could have saved her at all, but the fact remains, her chances for survival would have been significantly greater had the French been able to just take her to the nearest hospital and get her into surgery within the first 30 minutes like paramedics here in the US can and do.
Socialized medicine kills. That’s all there is to it.
Or, more personally.
My father in law had a massive heart attack, the kind you would have been in bypass surgery within hours. In Germany, he waited six months for the surgery.
Also in Germany. My mother in law was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her treatment was very good and quickly executed. Breast cancer has a tendency to spread to the bones and there are drugs to offset that tendency (as we later learned). Problem was her doctor had exceeded his budget for prescriptions and did not prescribe the appropriate medications to prevent the spread. Three years later she died from bone cancer.