Bernie Sanders, call your office. It turns out government-run health care has some problems—a bunch of them.
Junior doctors in England’s National Health Service (NHS) recently went on strike for five days. Once they returned, senior doctors, who supervise the junior doctors and provide assistance and instruction when needed, went on strike for two days.
The strike, over low pay and working conditions, was widely supported. According to the BBC, 86 percent of the 20,000 senior doctors voted to strike over low pay, though emergency services and maternity services were excluded.
The Guardian also warns, “More than half a million appointments, operations and procedures have been postponed in England as a result of the wave of industrial unrest in the NHS.”
A statement from the British Medical Association (BMA) junior doctors committee said:
“With the 75th birthday of the NHS just days away, neglect of its workforce has left us with 7.4 million people on waiting lists for surgery and procedures, 8,500 unfilled doctors’ posts in hospitals, and doctors who can barely walk down the road without a foreign government tempting them to leave an NHS where they are paid £14 an hour for a country which will pay them properly.”
Those waiting lists aren’t a recent phenomenon.
This news clip from Sky News features an interview with a lady who laments the long waiting lists for patients who need medical care—a problem in the NHS for decades.
If you like waiting in lines, you will LOVE England’s government-run health care system.
While the U.S. health care system has its problems, at least there’s little chance health care in the United States will be taken over by the government, right?
Not so fast. With Medicare, Medicaid, the Veterans Administration and subsidies for the Affordable Care Act, the government already spends more than 50 cents of every dollar spent in health care.
Worse yet, medical students apparently think a government-run system would be much better.
Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner recently wrote about her experience speaking with U.S. medical students. After speaking to one group, she writes, “It would be an understatement to say they don’t accept the idea of a market-based system that would provide physician autonomy and patient choice. They see their futures as part of a single-payer, government-run health system.”
Even more concerning is this observation: “One [student] told me they have so far had nine hours of classes in how to use the proper pronouns with patients and colleagues, compared to only one hour of study on lung cancer.”
Your U.S. health care system of the future. Senator Sanders would be proud.
July 25, 2023