London Bridge may not be falling down, but Britain’s government-controlled National Health Service just might be.
London’s Daily Mail noted that a former director of the NHS died at the very hospital where she had been a member of the board of directors. It seems the stomach operation she needed to survive was put off four times – for reasons that were never made clear.
She waited nine months all told, and by the time she had the surgery, she was extremely weak. She never fully regained consciousness after the operation.
“I don’t really know why she died,” her mourning husband, Jim, told the newspaper. “I did not get a reason from the hospital. We all want to know for closure. She got weaker and weaker as she waited and operations were put off.”
While the exact details of what caused the woman’s death remain uncertain, Britain’s medical system is notorious for its deadly delays.
But the same delays may be coming to the United States soon. Government-run ObamaCare will rely on the already overburdened Medicaid program to extend care to millions of Americans who do not have insurance. But many people who are currently on Medicaid struggle to find doctors as it is. The reimbursement that Medicaid pays doctors is so low that many have stopped taking Medicaid patients.
The New York Times told of a nurse in Louisiana who cannot find an orthopedic surgeon or a pain management doctor to deal with the agonizing pain of herniated discs in her neck. Her Medicaid card is “a useless piece of plastic,” she said. A doctor in New Orleans added, “Having a Medicaid card in no way assures access to care.”
So if Medicaid doesn’t “assure access” for its existing patients, how will ObamaCare provide access for millions more people through Medicaid? As even Democrat former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen pointed out, ObamaCare is imposing massive new unfunded health care mandates on the states. And yet most states are having to scramble to balance their current budgets, much less budgets that will be bloated by mandatory ObamaCare spending.
Though there is no certainty of success, the congressional efforts to repeal or de-fund ObamaCare should continue. And the Supreme Court should ultimately rule it unconstitutional.