Socialized Medicine: From Anecdote to Data

Last night ’s CNN duel between Senators Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz on the future of Obamacare was pretty illuminating for a recent arrival to the United States, with Senator Sanders’ playbook all-too-familiar to those of us from the UK.Sanders wants a single-payer socialized healthcare system in the United States, just as we have in Britain. Any objection to that is met with the claim that you are “leaving people to die.” The only alternatives on offer, you would think, are the U.S. system as it exists now, or the UK system. Sanders did not once acknowledge that the UK structure, which is free at the point of use, inevitably means rationed care, with a lack of pre-screening. He also faile d to acknowledge that lower health spending levels (indeed, evenpublic spending on health is lower in the UK than the United States now) arenot the same as efficiency—which is about outputs per input.In the face of anecdote after anecdote about those saved by Obamacare and the virtues of a government-run health system, Cruz countered with some anecdotes from the UK showing the consequences of rationed care:a Scottish hospital turning away pregnant women, a woman in Wales waitingeight hours on the floor for an ambulance to arrive  after a fall, and a hospital in Essex canceling life-saving cancer treatment because there were no free beds in intensive care. He could also have talked about theMid-Staffs scandal, ora recent documentary showing doctors deciding between saving a cancer...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs