In today’s WSJ, Theodore Dalrymple (the pseudonym of a British doctor) writes about the effects there of turning health care into a “right.” His piece is well worth reading.
The egalitarian National Health Service has had a baneful impact. Dalrymple writes, “The UK is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for treatment if they are able to do so….After 60 years of universal health care, free at the point of usage and funded by taxation, inequalities between the richest and poorest sections of the population have not been reduced. But Britain does have the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe.”
Ideas have consequences. The trouble with our Beloved Leader is that he evidently is unable to ever see any bad consequences emanating from his wonderful plans for remaking the nation. Therefore he pushes doggedly ahead with programs such as nationalizing (and politicizing) health care even though millions of people are saying, “That’s going to be lousy and I don’t want it.”
