The Bernie crowd hasn’t slowed their demands for socialized medicine. Claiming they fight for compassion, they ridiculed the tax breaks because it gave people more choices in how they approached their own healthcare and insurance. They claim to know more about your health and well-being than you do, and they are perfectly willing to force you to do things their way.
And yet, every time we look at real-world examples, we see that socialized medicine is disastrous. This winter, we have to look no further than our friends across the pond to see a catastrophic breakdown of the UK’s medical system.
A Flu Outbreak
Apparently December and January are the peak of flu season in most places in the world. I say apparently, because the healthcare system in the UK seems to not know this. In the peak season, trusts (national healthcare branches) have been so overrun with flu patients that they are out of room for routine procedures. Urgently sick patients are facing an average wait time of around 12 hours. This is in the face of 3.7 million cases of flu, including an outbreak of Australian flu that seems to be more severe than most.
At first glance, 3.7 million cases seems pretty severe. But, when you look at peak season averages in the UK, anywhere from 3 to 4 million cases in peak weeks is normal. In other words, the UK healthcare system is struggling with an average flu season.
That hasn’t stopped liberals from making excuses, though. They are blaming the “severe” conditions on global warming, citing Al Gore’s predictions that higher temperatures cause more severe outbreaks. This is wrong on several counts. Flu outbreaks are typically worse in colder weather, when people spend more time close together indoors. The liberals are extra wrong in this case, as the weather in the UK has turned out to be far more mild than earlier predictions suggested.
Fallout
The failure to handle influenza is on top of a failure to handle a slew of extra problems. To handle the triage, British trusts have cancelled all non-emergency surgeries for the month of January. That’s more than 50,000 scheduled surgeries that have been cancelled to make more room for flu patients.
Additionally, many trusts have stopped separating male and female patients in a last-ditch effort to admit as many people as possible. Despite these desperate measures, a number of trusts are closing their doors. They simply can’t handle the numbers. This has led to the most flu deaths in the UK in many years. More than 24 have already perished, and the final tally will likely be higher.
Why the Problem
Now we’re forced to ask the pertinent question: if this flu season isn’t an unprecedented pandemic, why is the healthcare system suddenly unable to cope?
The answer is pretty simple. First, this isn’t a sudden problem. British trusts have been facing funding restrictions and reductions in overall capacity for many years. The socialized system can’t foot the bills, so there are fewer resources to provide care.
Meanwhile, the demand of socialized medicine always grows, and now the supply shortage has hit a breaking point. The UK has struggled with every flu season for a while, but this year exceeded the breaking point and the issue has become newsworthy overseas.
Meanwhile in the US
Even while the UK is in a crisis over a nominal flu season, the U.S. is facing a severe winter. The conditions are prime for one of the worst flu seasons in recent memory. Yet, you don’t hear stories of American clinics closing their doors or cancelling surgeries just to handle the massive number of cases. Instead, the notoriously imperfect system in the U.S. is handling the tough flu season in stride. You can get immediate care for a severe case of the flu pretty much anywhere across the country. The cold is the real danger — not the ineptitude of the healthcare system.
We’ve seen countless examples: socialized medicine doesn’t work. It suffers from the same supply and demand issues of every socialized system. Yet, no matter how much proof is evident, the liberals will ignore it on and say socialism is the only way. It’s beyond absurd. People are suffering and dying because the unsustainable nature of socialized medicine can’t handle a basic flu season. How much worse does it have to get for those on the left to wake up and see the truth?
~ American Liberty Report
