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In This Case, I Say We Look to Britain

Jimmie | July 25, 2010 | Comments (1)

This past weekend, the left’s best and brightest met in Las Vegas to discuss, among other things, how they can rush America pell-mell toward an NHS-style, single-payer, government-run health care system. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, surrounded by a friendly audience on his home turf, proclaimed the public option a fait accompli. Meanwhile, as Philip Klein reported in The American Spectator, various Democratic éminences grises took to the stage to outline exactly how the assembled progressives would “attack and pivot” to get the socialized medicine they want.

On the other hand, the folks who live under the tender ministrations of the NHS are fleeing it like rats from the ship, leaving their sick and elderly behind to fend for themselves. From last night’s Telegraph newspaper (via Claire Berlinksi at Ricochet):

An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:

Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.

A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.

The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.

Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.

You will not be terribly shocked to learn the reason for these cuts. The NHS is teetering on the precipice of financial collapse. Without significant reform, the entire British health system will fall apart. We have already seen thousands of needless deaths because of inevitable bureaucratic wrangling and rationing based on cost. It’s entirely possible thousands more will die in their homes, faithfully monitoring their own cancer symptoms or waiting on necessary surgery that may never come.

But there is hope on the horizon, at least for our British friends. The new Conservative government is trying to turn its system away from the yawning chasm of failure (via NewsRealBlog). The word “privatization” is openly in use and no one has yet been blighted with a terrible eldritch curse for using it. Such crazy ideas as putting control for medical decisions in the hands doctors and patients instead of bureaucrats are being bandied about without even the faintest hint of Armageddon.

Right now, Britain and the US are like two large ships passing in the night — one headed to calm waters and the other toward iceberg-choked seas. Let us hope that we have the sense to turn our own ship around before we take more damage than we can repair. I’d rather not see our elderly sitting at home counting the days before they die because we listened to the progressives’ foolishness.