What About Health Care?

Townhall.com has a column from Dr. Walter E. Williams, economist, titled "Do We Want Socialized Medicine?". I consider it a must read for those who think we want to pattern our health care system after those of Canada and Britain.

Dr. Williams' second and third paragraphs should give us pause:

London's Observer (3/3/02) carried a story saying that an "unpublished report shows some patients are now having to wait more than eight months for treatment, during which time many of their cancers become incurable." Another story said, "According to a World Health Organisation report to be published later this year, around 10,000 British people die unnecessarily from cancer each year -- three times as many as are killed on our roads."

The Observer (12/16/01) also reported, "A recent academic study showed National Health Service delays in bowel cancer treatment were so great that, in one in five cases, cancer which was curable at the time of diagnosis had become incurable by the time of treatment."

That's a pretty serious consequence for some. I have to wonder how much thought, if any, Hilary Clinton has given to her desire for socialized medicine in the USA. Of course, no one calls it socialized medicine here, but that's what it would amount to. And it could cost people their lives.

Dr. Williams also discusses the situation in Canada, and then concludes with this:

Some of our politicians hold up the Canadian and British nationalized health care systems as models for us. You can bet that should we ever have such a system, they would exempt themselves from what the rest of us would have to endure.

There's a cure for our health care problems. That cure is not to demand more government but less government. I challenge anyone to identify a problem with health care in America that is not caused or aggravated by federal, state and local governments. And, I challenge anyone to show me people dying on the streets because they don't have health insurance.

Think about it.