A couple of years ago, Paul Krugman assured us that government-run healthcare was a good idea, writing that “In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We’ve all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false.”
Well, if the stories are false, the British press must love to tell negative lies about their own nation, as I’ve pointed out in a series of often-horrifying blog posts here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
And now there’s a new revelation that further demolishes Krugman’s assertion. But more troubling, it also provides a glimpse at America’s future with Obamacare. Here are some cheerful excerpts from a story in the UK-based Independent.
Hip replacements, cataract surgery and tonsil removal are among operations now being rationed in a bid to save the NHS money. Two-thirds of health trusts in England are rationing treatments for “non-urgent” conditions as part of the drive to reduce costs in the NHS by £20bn over the next four years. One in three primary-care trusts (PCTs) has expanded the list of procedures it will restrict funding to in the past 12 months. …According to responses from the 111 trusts to freedom-of-information requests, 64 per cent of them have now introduced rationing policies for non-urgent treatments and those of limited clinical value. Of those PCTs that have not introduced restrictions, a third are working with GPs to reduce referrals or have put in place peer-review systems to assess referrals. In the last year, 35 per cent of PCTs have added procedures to lists of treatments they no longer fund because they deem them to be non-urgent or of limited clinical value. ..Bill Walters, 75, from Berkshire, recently had to wait 30 weeks for a hip operation instead of the standard 18.
I’ve never pretended the American healthcare system is perfect, largely because of massive government intervention and control. And even a laissez-faire system doubtlessly would generate some horror stories.
But I feel very comfortable in stating that the United Kingdom is a good example of why more government is never the answer for problems created by government involvement in the first place.
