July 9, 2007
Another Spot-On…
…Mark Steyn column addresses the jobs Britons won’t do.
Does government health care inevitably lead to homicidal doctors who can’t wait to leap into a flaming SUV and drive it through the check-in counter? No. But government health care does lead to a dependence on medical staff imported from other countries.
(Truncating)
When the president talks about needing immigrants to do “the jobs Americans won’t do,” most of us assume he means seasonal fruit pickers and the maid who turns down your hotel bed and leaves the little chocolate on it. But in the United Kingdom the jobs Britons won’t do has somehow come to encompass the medical profession.
This particular set of chickens has come home to roost by unwitting invitation courtesy of Britain’s socialized medicine institution, the National Health Service, the same sort of program our very own Democrats would love to see inflicted upon We, the American People.
Aneurin Bevan, the socialist who created the National Health Service after World War II, was once asked to explain how he’d talked the country’s doctors into agreeing to become state employees: “I stuffed their mouths with gold,” he crowed. Sixty years later, no amount of gold can persuade Britons to spend their working lives in the country’s dirty, decrepit hospitals (they spend enough of their nonworking lives there, waiting to be seen, waiting for beds, waiting for operations). According to a report in the British Medical Journal, white males comprise 43.5 percent of the population but now account for less than a quarter of students at UK medical schools. In other words, being a doctor is no longer an attractive middle-class career proposition. That’s quite a monument to six decades of Michael Moore-style socialist health care.
Anyway, read the entire column, it’s on point and conveys a predilection of what we can expect from a like health care situation here in the United States. It’s what happens when government takes over what should remain a marketplace managed industry.
Of course, Mark Steyn has a flair for hitting the proverbial nail right on the head.
In his book America Alone, he details other demographic details of socialist Europe that are already being manifest in the news, such as this item, which the U.S. will eventually echo if we continue to subscribe to the Democrats’ birth control at all costs and damn the torpedos baby murdering abortion agendas.
And yet, as is forever the case, one of the greatest shortcomings of the American left is that they are totally incapable of learning from the mistakes of the socialist EU countries, who continuously provide us with perfect examples of what not to do and why, insisting instead upon forcing us to make the same tragic errors. They apparently believe that what fails miserably elsewhere will be a sure success here.
Go figure.
http://hardastarboard.mu.nu/wp-trackback.php?p=705
July 9th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Darn that Law of Unintended Consequences! Darn it to heck!
July 9th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
[...] Zac Efron Link to Article michael moore Another Spot-On… » Posted at Hard Astarboard on Monday, July 09, 2007 …Mark Steyn column addresses the jobs Britons won’t do … middle-class career proposition. That’s quite a monument to six decades of Michael Moore-style socialist View Entire Article » [...]
July 9th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
The US only has 24% foreign physicians compared to Britains 37%. Perhaps Mark S. is correct that our lucrative private practice attracts native born MDs. But then again, perhaps our standards are lower than a socialized (spit!) place like Canada. According to http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=ff90ad9a-27fc-40e5-bd16-369bb739f6fe&k=68609 the Canuck health system is too tough, so they come here. Hmm, wonder if the US kids are taking the far easier MBA to get into health insurance where the real $$ is?
July 9th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
The first problem is social medicine. This eliminates compitition which also eliminates competative saleries sending home grown doctors lookign elsewhere.
Then a situation forms in which foreign doctors enter the country and because of a lack of home grown they are readily accepted to fill a slot and low and behold….Muslin terrorists who are local doctors place a car bomb at Piccadilly Circus.
If Dems get the White House and keep Congress next year social medicine will be in our future. Not only will we face the crisis like Canada where one has to wait six months or more for an MRI but doctors will look elswhere for a better salary and we will have more foreign MDs with car bombs in Times Square.
I’ll bet though that liberals here will NEVER come to this conclusion because they see government as the come all and end all to everything!
July 10th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Uncle Pavian –
Life in America would be so much nicer if we didn’t have today’s Democrats and their liberal masters going hell-bent-for-leather to subject us to that particular law, LOL.
BB –
Just goes to show what happens when a government adopts socialism as its political theme and then, rather than admit it was wrong, retains and defends its mistakes no matter how badly they hurt the country and its people.
I somehow doubt that the Canadian policy czars place their own health issues in the same basket they insist their constituents depend upon.
Ken –
You are right on point there — America is the success we are because we allow elements of the marketplace to compete within their respective fields.
Generic drugs are a prime example; The bottom line is the profit motive, and given time, the private sector finds ways to profit from every financial level of our society. This means that they will eventually find methods of enjoying profits while making products and services affordable to even the poorest Americans.
The instant government becomes involved, quagmires of bureaucracy, genocide of tax money and intended beneficiaries turned victim are the primary results. You can’t expect civil servants (guaranteed wage, benefits, job security, retirement types) and/or career politicians to address private sector problems with any kind of understanding, serious concern or competence when they haven’t a clue as to the realities of life outside their GS paygrade existence.
I dread the day that the Democrats have both the White House and the Congressional majority. You are correct, such a situation will constitute an invitation to Islamic terror on U.S. soil and trust me, those politicians on the left side of the aisle will have learned nothing from Britain’s troubles. They never learn from anything that happens to other countries, no matter how often the same mistakes are made.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:47 am
You’re right in saying the Democrats never learn from other countries, no matter how often the same mistakes are made. They never even learn from our own country’s mistakes. History doesn’t seem to exist for them except for their revised version of it.
May God help us all if we go to socialized medicine. It will truly ruin this country.
Excellent post, Seth.
July 10th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
God help us all if we dont show up by the droves to vote next year!
July 10th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Seth,
Just to beat a dead horse a little more, we find at http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/release.cfm?ID=1529 paperwork (bureacracy) costs in Canada’s system are 16.7% compared to the US 31%. Which, I guess we could read as they are more efficient with their ’socialist’ methods than our ‘free market’ style. The Canucks also live 2 years longer than we on average. Makes one wonder if the ’screw the customer’ mentality of US business isn’t a little too crude for something as crtical and personal as as our healthcare. (I mean at a minimum, I would prefer to hear “Here, let me apply a tournaquet to that bleeding stump!” rather than the usual, “Get out your insurance cards and move to the 4th teller cage…and don’t bleed on the floor!”)
July 10th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Gayle –
Thanks.
It’s all about the Democrats’ liberal-inspired Utopianism. Just as they ignore news items that “complicate” their view of current events, they ignore the downsides, no matter how significant, of all the agendas they decide to ram down the rest of our throats.
Marie –
I hope those who sat out the last election to “punish” the GOP learned from that major mistake and show up in force in November 2008. If they don’t, this country will have some serious survival problems.
BB –
On the other hand, you might not be overly thrilled when your doctor tells you that if you want to avoid profound complications and live, you need to have a certain operation ASAP, then have your government-run healthcare system tell you that the next available slot for that surgery is six months down the road.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
Wait six months for surgery? Heh, at 3 score and six, I’ve never had any sugery. Nor do I have a problem getting in to see my doctor the same day. My problem with healthcare isn’t me. It’s that the other ‘civilized’ countries are blowing us out of the water by any measure. If you care to peruse the dozens of charts stacking our healthcare metrics up against “the six”, refer to http://www.commonwealthfund.org/chartcartcharts/chartcartcharts_list.htm?interests=1 and see if you can find ONE measurement where the US is first. I couldn’t. When GM, WalMart, the doctors and a large plurality of citizens start thinking about universal health care…there must be some reason. Well, besides a dark liberal conspiracy.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:02 am
BB –
Perhaps the criteria these folks use to draw their conclusions differ from my own, or maybe overall figures somehow clash with reality, I truly can’t say.
However, in the course of my considerable travels I make a point of making the acquaintances of an awful lot of people from all financial walks of life.
I know a lot of poor people, some of whom are on gov’t doles for disabilities of one kind or another or on low end Social Security, and many who simply barely get by on low wage jobs that don’t offer them health insurance.
None of the above whom I’ve known to need medical procedures has ever had any problem getting them in a timely manner. The same applies to prescriptions. In fact, a guy I’ve known for several years who barely has the proverbial pot to pee in and not only no HMO nor tax sponsored income recently had surgery and a private room at one of the most expensive hospitals in the midwest, whose staff knew his financial situation going in.
Of those in the 25-40k income brackets I know who are dependent upon employer furnished HMOs and have had problems requiring surgery or other costly procedures, treatment has again been timely, though a few had to meet deductibles that were a bit on the tough side.
That’s fine, healthcare facilities and medical staffs are private sector, as well they should be. In the marketplace, the reality is that competition leads to better product.
To go a step further, we are not a socialist country (see U.S. Constitution for more details). Taxpayers in Boise should not be held responsible for the medical care of, say, citizens dwelling in Baltimore, though I believe that individual states, based upon the will of a true majority of their voters, should be allowed to enact such social policies for their own residents.
For my own part, I would prefer not to pay 50% of my income in taxes to accommodate a government run healthcare system, especially in view of the grim day-to-day realities that actually occur in such an environment.
One thing I’ve observed in every article I’ve read that criticizes our healthcare system and promotes those of socialist countries is that they mention none of the individual horror stories I’ve heard from British and Canadian friends on the topic.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
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