Webloggin » PC Medicine

Of the many foolish ideas I had when I was young, a belief in government run medical care wasn’t one of them. This rare moment of youthful intelligence came from the fact that I spent a very enjoyable year as a student abroad during the twilight years of the Thatcher administration. Maggie had managed to make a lot of changes, but she hadn’t touched national health care. I therefore got to see that National Health program with my own eyes.

What I learned was that, even though it was true that everyone had access to doctors, there was a little, unspoken, problem: While in America most got good to excellent treatment, with some unfortunates getting lousy treatment, in England, everyone got lousy medicine. My friend’s mother spent years in a wheelchair in excruciating pain because she was too far down on the list for hip replacement surgery. I know for a fact that wouldn’t have happened in America. My father, once he was diagnosed as needing a hip replacement, had the same surgery within a month of diagnosis.

To me, the British national health care system was always the perfect symbol of socialism: better that everyone should be miserable, rather than anyone being happy.

My point is that, as Hillary gears up to make Hillarycare a reality, stop and think about what happens when the government, not the market, controls health care. If you’re having a problem visualizing that system, watch this video.

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