Farewell, England, we scarcely knew ye

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Alternative headline: Alternative fuel source gets a foothold in British hospitals


England of Magna Carta, ending slave trade and ending worldwide tyranny via WW I and WW II fame has appeared to step aside and say, “Ya know, eff it. We’re done here”.

This is what the self-revocation process looks like for a member in good standing of Western Civilization.


Via KT of the Scratching Post who had this to say with respect to the following: “.... it turns out there was no reason to Bomben auf Engelend after all. The British lion would eventually see the light.


From the Telegraph:

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.

One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’
Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013.

They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich Hospital itself disposes of remains by cremation.

“This practice is totally unacceptable,” said Dr Poulter.

“While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay.”

“totally unacceptable”... “Human Tissue Authority”

Charmed, we’re sure.

We’re sure the global community will get properly exercised only when the British Health Ministry declares that the resulting embryonic tissue particulate is carcinogenic and a global-warming contributor as well



The second item as evidence of England stepping down from the world stage relates to Sharia law now being codified into British law and in this instance with respect to the writing of wills.


Also, from the Telegraph:

Islamic law is to be effectively enshrined in the British legal system for the first time under guidelines for solicitors on drawing up “Sharia compliant” wills.

Under ground-breaking guidance, produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to write Islamic wills that deny women an equal share of inheritances and exclude unbelievers altogether.

The documents, which would be recognised by Britain’s courts, will also prevent children born out of wedlock – and even those who have been adopted – from being counted as legitimate heirs.

Anyone married in a church, or in a civil ceremony, could be excluded from succession under Sharia principles, which recognise only Muslim weddings for inheritance purposes.

Nicholas Fluck, president of The Law Society, said the guidance would promote “good practice” in applying Islamic principles in the British legal system.

Because Balkanizing your country absolutely demands “good practice”.



Western Civilization with it’s freedom of speech and religion, its property rights and equality-for-all features had a pretty good run and at one time Great Britain was at the forefront of that novel and rebellious movement.


All movements, however, have their arc and it would appear the fat and sclerotic Brits are exhibiting some defense-of-culture laziness and hastening the demise of its imperfect yet better-than-the-rest culture.


We are not fans of anti-Sharia legislation that we have seen pop up from time to time over the years. Like ridiculous flag-burning amendments, it comes across as cheap pandering.


Do we not have a culturally-approved standing code of laws as it is? And did we not fight a civil war for the fair and equal treatment of all citizens and then have it out all over again some 100 years later to further enhance civil rights guarantees. Did we not get this all straightened out?


However, when reality knocks and our English-speaking cousins are setting up a shadow or parallel legal system to the one that already exists, is anti-Sharia legislation worth a second look?


As it stands, right now, peace out, our cousins across the pond.

Looks like we'll be learning these lessons the hard way

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America’s paper of record seems genuinely perplexed that the new health care law that mandates more benefits from health insurers and adds more people into the health care system, isn’t coming anywhere near the advertised goal of ObamaCare: bending downward the cost curve of health care.

Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.

Particularly vulnerable to the high rates are small businesses and people who do not have employer-provided insurance and must buy it on their own.

In California, Aetna is proposing rate increases of as much as 22 percent, Anthem Blue Cross 26 percent and Blue Shield of California 20 percent for some of those policy holders, according to the insurers’ filings with the state for 2013. These rate requests are all the more striking after a 39 percent rise sought by Anthem Blue Cross in 2010 helped give impetus to the law, known as the Affordable Care Act, which was passed the same year and will not be fully in effect until 2014.

In other states, like Florida and Ohio, insurers have been able to raise rates by at least 20 percent for some policy holders. The rate increases can amount to several hundred dollars a month.

The proposed increases compare with about 4 percent for families with employer-based policies.
…

The double-digit requests in some states are being made despite evidence that overall health care costs appear to have slowed in recent years, increasing in the single digits annually as many people put off treatment because of the weak economy.PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates that costs may increase just 7.5 percent next year, well below the rate increases being sought by some insurers. But the companies counter that medical costs for some policy holders are rising much faster than the average, suggesting they are in a sicker population. Federal regulators contend that premiums would be higher still without the law, which also sets limits on profits and administrative costs and provides for rebates if insurers exceed those limits.

(italics, ours)

No proof of this is offered.


Back to the article:

Critics, like Dave Jones, the California insurance commissioner and one of two health plan regulators in that state, said that without a federal provision giving all regulators the ability to deny excessive rate increases, some insurance companies can raise rates as much as they did before the law was enacted.

“This is business as usual,” Mr. Jones said. “It’s a huge loophole in the Affordable Care Act,” he said.

We’ve got news for Mr. Jones: that is no loophole and it’s not a bug… it’s a feature. In crafting the legislation, allowing health insurers to raise rates unilaterally was most likely a concession to the insurers in return for the feds setting limits on profits and administrative costs.

That’s how things get done legislatively, though, you may be asking yourself what the results of traditional sausage-making done by paid politicians and health care lobbyists are going to actually improve your personal health care and health care costs. That’s a damn fine question.


Maybe to help answer that question, we can look across the pond to ObamaCare enthusiasts' favorite healthcare system, Britain’s NHS (National Health Service):

An official inquiry into failings at the hospital, where between 400 and 1,200 patients died needlessly due to a catalogue of failings and appalling standards of care, is due to be published later this month.

The report is expected to blame managers who cut costs and reduced staffing levels in an attempt to hit "efficiency" targets and win foundation status.

Before taking control of the health service, Sir David ran the health authority responsible for supervising Stafford between August 2005 and April 2006.

His tenure came during a four-year period in which between 400 and 1,200 patients died needlessly due to a catalogue of failings and appalling standards of care at Mid Staffordshire NHS trust.

And later in the same article:

The report, the result of a two year-long inquiry led by Robert Francis QC, is expected to call for major reforms of the NHS including new controls to identify and remove bad managers and an improved training programme for nurses and health care assistants.

It will warn that a "culture of fear" filtering down from Whitehall made managers obsessed with hitting targets, even when to do so would mean putting patients at risk.

Doctors at Stafford were called away from critical patients to treat less urgent Accident and Emergency patients because a central target said all patients should be discharged from A&E units within four hours, the inquiry reportedly heard.

Patients were left unwashed, unfed and in soiled bedsheets, while nurses were told that "heads would roll" and the A&E department could close if targets were missed.

(emphasis, ours)


ObamaCare has granted Medicare the power to reward and punish hospitals based upon patient care and, in fact, just recently Medicare reduced re-imbursement rates for 8 San Diego-area hospitals for not meeting ObamaCare's patient care goals.

Though well-intended, the NHS provides a great example of the un-intended consequences of the government incentivizing better patient care when, in reality, the results are the exact opposite.

Despite examples like this, looks like we are going to learn these lessons the hard way.

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Not so random thought(s) of the day

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It seems we have been down this "You didn't build that" road before. Like, well over 200 years ago.

Via Ann Althouse:

Lord North: Look, if you colonists have been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by colonists and yeomen who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart.

George Washington: Without our consent, we reject your taxes.

Lord North: There are a lot of smart people out there in the New World. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking British subjects of the Crown out there.

Thomas Jefferson: Stop coercing us, Lord North. Your Acts are intolerable.

Lord North: If you yankees were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great King somewhere in your life. Some members of Parliament helped to create this unbelievable Royal Navy system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in French and Indian Wars and the East India Company.



Alexander Hamilton: The King is your king. He is only our king by our agreement.

Lord North: If you've got a medical practice or silver smithery or a cabinetmaking business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The printing press didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the printing press so that all the pamphleteers could make money off the printing press.

Sam Adams: Hey, Lord North, shove your Stamp Act where the sun don't set.

Lord North: All right, all right - everybody just calm down. In politics, we all tolerate a certain amount of spin. I understand these are the games that get played in political campaigns. Although when folks just, like, omit entire sentences of what you said, they start kind of splicing and dicing, you may have gone a little over the edge there, you pesky Americans.

And some observations on last night's opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games: outside of some cheeky moments involving Rowan Atkinson and the Queen Elizabeth/James Bond sequence, it was pretty much a snooze fest.



Oh, and you know we took notice of this from last night:





Hell, even the Chi-comms wouldn't use sick children doing tumbling routines on their hospital beds to propagandize a government program. Then again, forced sterilization and abortions would've cut down on the number of children needed so maybe they could've pulled it off.

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Your government-managed health care update

Do you all remember the outrageous claims of death panels being effectively built-in to ObamaCare? Take a read and tell us if any of this sounds familiar. From The Telegraph:

NHS managers are deliberately delaying operations as they wait for patients either to die or go private in order to save money, according to an official report.

Health service trusts are “imposing pain and inconvenience” by making patients wait longer than necessary, in some cases as long as four months, the study found.

Executives believe the delays mean some people will remove themselves from lists “either by dying or by paying for their own treatment” claims the report, by an independent watchdog that advises the NHS.

The Co-operation and Competition Panel says the tactic is one of a number used by managers that “excessively constrain” patients’ rights to choose where to be operated upon, and damage hospitals’ ability to compete for planned surgery.

It claims unfair practices are “endemic” in some areas of England and pose a “serious risk” to the Government’s drive to open up the health service to competition.

But managers, who are already rationing surgery for cataracts, hips, knees and tonsils, say they must restrict treatment as the NHS is under orders to make £20 billion of efficiency savings by 2015.

Lord Carter of Coles, chairman of the panel, said: “Commissioners have a difficult job in the current financial climate, but patients’ rights are often being restricted without a valid and visible reason.”

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: “It is outrageous that some primary care trusts are imposing minimum waiting times. The suggestion that it could save money because patients will remove themselves from the list by going private or dying is a callous and cynical manipulation of people’s lives and should not be tolerated.”

The article goes on to report that managers have restricted patients' rights to choose among four hospitals, including private hospitals, in order to balance their own books

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(italics, ours)

Call us crazy but it's hard to think that the whole dying thing is what you would call a voluntary feature of the British NHS.

And given the above, you would not be mistaken for holding a sneaking suspicion that Britain's single-payer health care system doesn't seem to have quite as much emphasis on health or care as you might think.

But good to know they have a private system, right? Well, a private system only if you can afford it. So, not only is one paying into the British NHS that covers all Britons, one is also paying out-of-pocket for treatment that NHS managers are denying.

And wasn't this two-tier system of haves and have-nots precisely what government-managed health care like NHS and ObamaCare supposed to eliminate? Wasn't ObamaCare supposed to be all about equal and affordable access for everyone? Yeah, we thought so, also.

Death panels? Nothing to see here - please move along.

Just a preview of things to come, folks.

More stuff that would have been really nice to know prior to this past March

The hits, they just keep on coming.

Mind you, the following headline and sub-headline wasn't from Fox News but rather Reuters:



Health reform to worsen doctor shortage: group

The U.S. healthcare reform law will worsen a shortage of physicians as millions of newly insured patients seek care, the Association of American Medical Colleges said on Thursday.

The group's Center for Workforce Studies released new estimates that showed shortages would be 50 percent worse in 2015 than forecast.

"While previous projections showed a baseline shortage of 39,600 doctors in 2015, current estimates bring that number closer to 63,000, with a worsening of shortages through 2025," the group said in a statement.

"The United States already was struggling with a critical physician shortage and the problem will only be exacerbated as 32 million Americans acquire health care coverage, and an additional 36 million people enter Medicare."

Pre-ObamaCare: 39,000 doctors short

Post-ObamaCare: 63,000 doctors short


The article is unclear as to whether the projected shortages take into account only those numbers as stated above that will be forced into ObamaCare and/or aged into Medicare.... or these shortages also take into account the disincentives to entering the profession brought about by Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement cuts and the red tape and regulatory uncertainty we have seen take place already.

If it's only the former, then expect that 69,000 shortfall to grow quite considerably.


And how will ObamaCare address this shortage?:

It calls for Congress to increase funding to train new doctors. "The number of medical school students continues to increase, adding 7,000 graduates every year over the next decade," the AAMC said.

It said at least 15 percent more were needed.

And where do you think this funding is coming from?

And with respect to getting those doctors churned out in time to meet the crunch... think 8 years of med school, residencies and pipe lines... very long pipelines.

Look forward to the ranks of our doctors being supplemented by overseas mail order doctors as Britain has been forced to do already.

Don't look now, it's already here.

File this one under, "We told you so", or perhaps more aptly, "He told you so" because if you didn't want to believe us or perhaps thought we were engaging in hyperbolic fear-mongering, we would've directed you to the musings of one Dr. Donald Berwick who has quite a bit to say on the subject of rationing.

And even then, if perhaps you thought the man's apparent affection towards rationing was taken out of context or otherwise distorted to make a point, well then...

A decision to rescind endorsement of the drug would reignite the highly charged debate over US health care reform and how much the state should spend on new and expensive treatments.

Avastin, the world’s best selling cancer drug, is primarily used to treat colon cancer and was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2008 for use on women with breast cancer that has spread.

It costs $8,000 (£5,000) a month and is given to about 17,500 women in the US a year. The drug was initially approved after a study found that, by preventing blood flow to tumours, it extended the amount of time until the disease worsened by more than five months. However, two new studies have shown that the drug may not even extend life by an extra month.

The FDA advisory panel has now voted 12-1 to drop the endorsement for breast cancer treatment. The panel unusually cited "effectiveness" grounds for the decision. But it has been claimed that "cost effectiveness" was the real reason ahead of reforms in which the government will extend health insurance to the poorest.

The FDA is charged with determining the "effectiveness" of a drug not its "cost effectiveness". A wild assumption, we realize, that "cost effectiveness" is best determined by an open and transparent market place.

For those of you out there that would say the article gave scant evidence that "cost effectiveness" was the actual reason the FDA shot down Avastin, that would not be an unfair critique. However, given the cravenly cynical and hyper-political manner in which ObamaCare was Bush-Pushed across the finish line and what proponents like Berwick, who will be in charge of running Obamacare, have flatly stated about rationing and comparative effectiveness boards, why on earth would we give these unaccountable and politically-manipulated bureaucrats the benefit of the doubt?

We see no reason to so, yes, we will be embracing our inner cynic towards any and all matters related to healthcare in a constant effort to remain ungovernable.

Paging Dr. Berwick

It would appear that Dr. Donald Berwick's (President Obama's pick to head Medicare and Medicaid) beloved British health care system is in some trouble.

Some of the most common operations — including hip replacements and cataract surgery — will be rationed as part of attempts to save billions of pounds, despite government promises that front-line services would be protected.

How would you describe what is happening in the paragraph above? We think it's reasonable to assume given the language that is used and given the specific action that is taken to achieve the desired result, what is happening in that paragraph is "rationing".

Patients’ groups have described the measures as “astonishingly brutal”.

Eye surgery could delay hip operations An investigation by The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered widespread cuts planned across the NHS, many of which have already been agreed by senior health service officials. They include:

* Restrictions on some of the most basic and common operations, including hip and knee replacements, cataract surgery and orthodontic procedures.

* Plans to cut hundreds of thousands of pounds from budgets for the terminally ill, with dying cancer patients to be told to manage their own symptoms if their condition worsens at evenings or weekends.

* The closure of nursing homes for the elderly.

* A reduction in acute hospital beds, including those for the mentally ill, with targets to discourage GPs from sending patients to hospitals and reduce the number of people using accident and emergency departments.

* Tighter rationing of NHS funding for IVF treatment, and for surgery for obesity.

* Thousands of job losses at NHS hospitals, including 500 staff to go at a trust where cancer patients recently suffered delays in diagnosis and treatment because of staff shortages.

* Cost-cutting programmes in paediatric and maternity services, care of the elderly and services that provide respite breaks to long-term carers.

Again, rationing, delays, cuts, job losses, cost-cutting programs, reduction (of services), closure(s), not our words but theirs used to describe the inevitable results of government-managed health care.

When you declare particular goods and services as a right, why should it surprise anybody when those rights to which everyone is entitled start costing far more than they would if they were subject to market forces?

The nerve of the British pols to start denying British citizens their "rights".

Perhaps the Senate confirmation hearings for Dr. Berwick will provide the appropriate platform to get his reaction to what is happening over in England and to explain how it is the same thing will not be happening over here.

We swear - this is not a recycled post

Now, about that unfolding, slow-motion disaster occurring on Obama's watch. No, silly, not the Gulf oil spill - we're talking ObamaCare.

Millions of patients face losing NHS care as bosses prepare to axe treatments to make £20billion of savings by 2014, a top doctor has warned.

Among procedures being targeted by health trusts are hernias, joint replacements, ear and nose procedures, varicose veins and cataract surgery.

Dr Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, warned NHS bosses wanted 'wholesale reductions in budgets'.

He said primary care trusts - which commission care - are already compiling lists of 'low value' operations that would no longer be provided.

These include hip replacements for obese patients and some operations for hernias and gallstones. Procedures for varicose veins, ear and nose problems including grommets in children are also not funded in some areas.

Dr Porter said it was wrong to impose blanket bans on such procedures when some patients might benefit.

Of course, "wrong" is subject to interpretation when you bow before the false god of "controlling costs". And how is that working, by the way?

Patients could find it harder to get into hospital under plans from the National Institute for health and Clinical Excellence, which advises on drugs and procedures to be funded.

Chief executive Andrew Dillon said a review of clinical guidelines will be finished by the end of the year, which will include 'evidence of overuse' of treatments to 'see what the prospects (for savings) might be'.

Nice will also push through 150 changes to medical practice aimed at saving money, from reducing prescribing of antibiotics by GPs to delaying some prostate cancer tests.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Savings will be implemented in a way that does not affect the quality of services and all savings will be reinvested back in the NHS.'

Saving implemented by cutting back on services, ostensibly "quality of life" services to be reinvested back into the NHS... to improve quality.

This is the sort of illogical tail-chasing one has to buy into with fanatical and religious fervor when one attempts to defend socialized medicine.

To not see "rationing" as determined by others, is to be completely delusional.

The post title refers to the near-daily drum beat we read of the sky-rocketing costs of "free" socialized medicine and the resulting imposition of mandatory cuts in services as determined by "others", aka, not "you".

Freedom, Liberty and the NHS

A WOMAN has been denied an operation on the NHS after paying for a private consultation to deal with her severe back pain.

Jenny Whitehead, a breast cancer survivor, paid £250 for an appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon after being told she would have to wait five months to see him on the NHS. He told her he would add her to his NHS waiting list for surgery.

She was barred from the list, however, and sent back to her GP. She must now find at least £10,000 for private surgery, or wait until the autumn for the NHS operation to remove a cyst on her spine.

“When I paid £250 to see the specialist privately I had no idea I would be sacrificing my right to surgery on the NHS. I feel victimised,” she said.

The case will reopen the debate over NHS policy towards patients who pay for some of their care privately. Following a Sunday Times campaign in 2008, the government ordered the NHS to stop withdrawing care from patients who received additional private treatment or drugs. Cancer sufferers were being barred from further NHS treatment after buying potentially life-saving medicines not offered by the health service.

Whitehead’s case, which has shocked her local Labour MP, reveals that patients who go private in despair at long waiting lists still risk jeopardising their NHS treatment. Department of Health officials admit it remains official policy.

Remember, socialized medicine/universal healthcare is not about providing or even obtaining superior medical attention - it's about maintaining the status quo and ensuring everyone is subjected to the same crappy service and care.

What is more chilling than the actual story, though, is the reader comments. Few seemed to be bothered by the insanity of this situation and the consensus was that a tweak here and a tweak there would ultimately solve the problem rather than entertaining the notion of scrapping the system entirely.

In fact, there was incredulity expressed that this woman would have the temerity to "get out of the queue" in order to see after her own health.

It's a crazy notion, we realize, but perhaps we could toss-about the idea that... everyone pays for their own healthcare.

The Brits have their NHS and now that they do have it, they are loathe to reverse course and do anything as radical as privatizing healthcare whereby individuals and individual decisions take precedence over "the system".

The reader comments reflect the deleterious effects of submitting these sort of decisions to an outside authority. Self-interest, the desire to seek the best possible care for one's own health, becomes secondary to a perverse ideal of equality and fairness whereby acting in one's best interest is seen as "selfish" and "gaming the system".

The more we think about it, the more we are convinced of the justice and true fairness of blowing up and completely destroying ObamaCare by any legal means.

The healthcare system we've been waiting for is already here

For statists and their juvenile obsession with all things Euro we offer the following:

Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.

Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care. But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.
Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.

Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with 1 million pound pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported 400,000 pound payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.

He was said to be medically unfit to do so, though he sent some information to chairman Robert Francis through his solicitor.

The devastating-report into the Stafford Hospital-shambles’ laid waste to Labour’s decade-long obsession with box-ticking and league tables.

The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’

Last night the General Medical Council announced it was investigating several doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investigating at least one nurse and is considering other cases.

Ministers suggested the report highlighted a dreadful ‘local scandal’ but its overall conclusions are a blistering condemnation of Labour’s approach to the NHS.
It found that hospitals were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they ‘lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safer care’.

Imagine that. A hospital and an entire health care system that kind of forgot about that whole keeping people alive thing. And this is what we have to get done over here on this side of the pond? This is the health care system we’ve been waiting for?

But even in the aftermath of this scandal, the Brits still don’t get it. They think that firing or disciplining people is going to solve this problem? That it’s the Labour Party that is responsible for the appalling condition of Mid-Staffordshire?

This is not a “gotcha” or some unfortunate isolated case. This is the systemic face of statism where the needs of the individual are plowed under and compassion sacraficed at the alter of equality.

And you think it will be different over here? When the overriding priority of your healthcare system is “bending the cost curve downward”, this is what happens. Rationing of services is the natural outcome of this prioritization and price controls will ultimately result in sub-standard doctors, nurses and other health care workers.

The Brits think that disciplining individuals or a change in political parties are going to be the answer when it’s the system that is inherently and fatally flawed.

There is a constant to the authoritarian nature of statism and the big umbrella of collectivism and that is the appalling disregard for the individual in favor of preservation of "the system" and the status quo.

The (truly) sadly obligatory universal health care update

(This post appeared originally back on Monday but was inadvertantly taken down while doing some editing, the omission of which was discovered only now. We have re-posted this charming example of the compassion and effectiveness of socialized medicine for your reading enjoyment)

A three-year-old girl waiting for vital heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times in as many weeks because of a shortage of hospital beds.

Ella Cotterell was due to have an operation to widen her aorta artery in her heart on Monday at Bristol Children's Hospital, but her surgery was cancelled 48 hours before because all 15 beds in the intensive care unit were full.

Michele Narey, manager of the Women's and Children's division at the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'The decision to cancel any patient for any procedure is taken extremely seriously but is sometimes unavoidable because of the need to effectively manage emergency patients requiring beds on a day-to-day basis.

And here’s Ella’s Mom, Rachel Davis who has worked in the NHS for 22 years:

'This is a national problem, there are not enough resources in the NHS and it is about prioritising.
'Children who need routine grommet operations are seen quickly yet the children who need life-saving surgery are waiting because there are not enough intensive care beds and staff.
'It is a matter of time before a child dies on the waiting list and I don't want it to be Ella.
'If that does happen the Government will have blood on their hands.'

(italics ours)

Were Ella a loved one of ours we’d put even money there’d be some blood on our hands, as well.

But you know all this already because you all know that when you make something “free” there will be less of it. And when there is less of something you want or need, those needs will have to be prioritized. Prioritization that has been promised by the very people pimping universal health care.

In light of the overwhelming evidence of just what a disaster socialized medicine is we are developing an intense and deep-seated dislike towards those who know it sorely lacks but want to force this down our throat anyway.