EDITORIAL: The Brits' bad example (Friendly warnings against national health care)

The Washington Times ^ | August 7, 2009 | Editorial

[jazusamo]

Sometimes it takes an outsider's perspective to help you appreciate your own blessings. So it was Tuesday evening when Daniel Hannan, a British, 37-year-old member of the European Parliament, spoke at the Army and Navy Club in Washington. Mr. Hannan made a convincing case that the American health care system is far superior to the British one, and thus should not move down Britain's path toward government control.

"Ponder our example, and tremble," Mr. Hannan warned. "You see a grizzly picture of your own country's possible future. . .. Do not make the same mistakes we have." He continued: "I see this massive encroachment of the state... this huge power grab by the state machine... squeezing the private sector, to engorge the state." In Great Britain, he explained, "It is not uncommon to wait six, 10, even 12 months for a knee operation." He said, "It is exactly a Marxist system. You are treated as a supplicant and expected to be grateful for what you get. But our survival rates [in the United Kingdom] are demonstrably worse."

It's his advice that we should not buy into the notion of establishing a state-run system as just one option competing for business. "It expands and expands until it squeezes out every other system," he said. "Don't imagine that this is an experiment that can be reversed if it doesn't work out." The system becomes too big to kill, even though it works terribly. The 1.4 million employees of the British National Health Service make the NHS the world's third-largest single employer, behind only the Chinese army and the Indian Railways. Yet the majority of those 1.4 million, Mr. Hannan said, are "managers," not medical personnel.

[jazusamo]

Here's a 6 minute video on health care in Canada I finally found after having it filed for several months.

A Short Course In Brain Surgery

[kenavi]

He was quoting the Brit. I assume it came from a transcript.

It's hard to believe a Brit would make that mistake. Ursus horribilus is North American.

[HIDEK6]

It's hard to believe a Brit would make that mistake.

Like I said.

[kenavi]

It's hard to believe a Brit would make that mistake.

Like I said.

Let me guess, you're an Abbott & Costello fan! ("Who's on first." "That's what I asked you!")