Want to see what life will be like once the Democrats succeed in socializing our health care? Simple, just look to Britain and the National Health Service (NHS). The socialized medicine horror story de jour is about the quality of care--or lack thereof--at British hospitals. The UK Telegraph reports:
Bolton, Greater Manchester and Basildon NHS trusts have elite “foundation status”. However, The Sunday Telegraph has learned that statistics to be published this week will show a higher percentage of patients died while in their care in 2008-09 than in any other trusts in the country.
Well, somebody has to be worst, right? But its the level of care in British hospitals that abhors:
Investigations by this paper have found:
- Eight foundation hospitals are failing so badly that they have breached the terms of their licence to operate and are being placed under close supervision by the NHS watchdog, Monitor.
- The leading children’s hospital Alder Hey has been issued with a “warning notice” for breaching basic infection standards and putting vulnerable young patients at risk of killer infections – just two weeks after the trust declared itself “the best in the country”.
- Three ambulance services have also been issued with the same notices after failing to properly decontaminate equipment, or provide clean services for the most high-risk patients.
- Bosses of foundation trusts with high death rates have awarded themselves bumper pay rises. Chief executives at the eight foundation trusts with the highest death rates in 2007-08 had average salary rises of 15 per cent when their institutions took on the coveted status.
Last week Basildon was condemned by inspectors who found “blood-spattered” walls and filthy conditions.
And the NHS was started shortly after World War II so it's had time to work out its problems.
I'm not quiet sure what makes the left think the U.S. can do socialized medicine better than the rest of the world. Socialized medicine has never been tried on the scale of the United States (both population and geography) before, except maybe in Soviet Russia.
But we can look at the NHS for a preview of what's to come in the U.S.: poor care, bad hospitals, filthy conditions.
Comments