That excellent socialized health care

It’s always laughable when American liberals point to the wonders of European health care. In doing so, they do nothing more than reveal their parochial ignorance of European realities:

The full scale of impending hospital closures was laid bare last night as it emerged that three out of four trusts are already restricting patients’ access to treatment as they battle soaring deficits. Fears about the number of closures intensified as Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, sent NHS managers a guide on how best to handle decisions to shut down hospitals and units – a document that opposition politicians immediately branded a “spin” blueprint.

At the same time, a survey of NHS trust chief executives revealed the impact of the health service’s financial crisis on front-line care. The survey, published in today’s Health Service Journal, shows that 73 per cent of primary care trusts, which run GP clinics and health centres, are already restricting access to treatments. Half are also delaying operations.

The next time you hear a Democrat spouting off about nationalized health care bring up any European example, ask them if they’ve ever been in a European hospital. And if they answer yes, then tell them that they’re a liar, because no one who has lived in Europe would ever willingly choose a hospital in a European country with socialized health care over an American one.

It’s true that Europeans do live longer. Of course, they don’t tend to give their children 800 vaccines before they can walk, stuff themselves to the point of obesity, eat “food” made out of genetically modified plastic and they tend to drink wine instead of soda.

Avoidance and prevention is what allows them to survive despite their terrible health care systems, it’s not the health care systems. Although I suppose that it’s possible, considering how many people are killed by health care professionals every year, that long waiting lists for the even most basic treatment could be, in an ironic sense, an inadvertant health benefit.