Mark Steyn finds an excellent example:
This story from Le Journal de Montréal is en français, but you don’t have to know the lingo of the Continent to figure out the meaning of le mot “incontinent”:
Des patients souffrant d’un problème d’incontinence grave doivent attendre jusqu’à trois ans pour une opération qui dure à peine 30 minutes.
Which means: In the Province of Quebec, patients suffering from serious incontinence — ie, they have to aller aux toilettes jusqu’à 12 fois par nuit (that’s 12 times a night) — have to wait three years for a half-hour operation. That’s 3 years times 365 nights times 12 trips to the bathroom.
There are only two urologists in the province who perform the operation, in part because hospital budgets are so tight they decline to buy the necessary “neurostimulator.”
The central point about socialized medicine is that restricting access is the only means of controlling costs. And, when comparisons of health “costs” between nations are made, the time you spend in the bathroom each night and the subsequent impact on your work performance the following day are not factored in.
It just amazes me that people who must have had experience with the DMV yet think that government running health care is a good idea. Look, if it would work, I’d support it – I mean, come on: high quality, low cost health care? Why wouldn’t I want a piece of that? Because I know that it will actually be low quality and high cost. How do I know this? Because I know human nature – and the hospital director who has a certain amount of funds for the year can buy a “neurostimulator”, or he can have the lounge redecorated and give his secretary a pay raise. True, a very high minded and dedicated director would buy the “neurostimulator”, but most people who run government-funded agencies are not known for their dedication to the welfare of the people. On balance, any government run health system will fail, and fail completely.
Oh, to be sure, our liberal friends who want the DMV to run the hospitals can cherry pick out a story or two showing the stunning success of government funded health care. Impervious to facts and completely willing to believe absurd things, our liberals are easily tricked by their leaders into stoutly asserting that the paint isn’t peeling off the walls at the government hospital…because government bureaucrats have always been so hyper-efficient in making things run and, of course, the fact that they get paid the same whether they help 1 or 100 actually makes them want to see more people and treat them better. Such nonsense has to be ignored – there is no other side of the debate, here.
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