By Cal Thomas
Thursday, July 11, 2013
FT. WILLIAM, Scotland -- The power of television to
shrink the world has always amazed me. Eating lunch on the road to Ft. William,
a man at the next table recognizes me and introduces himself.
Keith Farrington says he spent 15 years working as an
assistant director of finance for the South East Thames Regional Health
Authority, part of the National Health Service. He has strong warnings for the
U.S. about Obamacare.
"The main problem is that the NHS is seen as free on
delivery to everybody," Farrington said. "It is not free. The
clinicians have not been trained to think about finance and budgetary control
as important. For example, overseas citizens can obtain an NHS number when they
visit a doctor's office. This number is seen as a passport to full NHS care,
including operations and aftercare because the clinicians say it is not their
job to sort out who is eligible and who is not. In this way, billions of pounds
are spent on non-eligible folk. ... Word has got round in Nigeria, Ghana, India
and Pakistan that it is possible to receive treatment on the UK taxpayer
without restraint and cheaper than paying in their own countries."
Obama claims that won't happen here. "The reforms I
am proposing," he said in 2009, "would not apply to those who are
here illegally." Partly true. With Obamacare, noncitizens would not be
covered and would not be subject to the individual mandate, but they could
still walk into any ER and get treated on the taxpayer's dime.
With such open-ended spending in the UK, the predictable
has occurred. The NHS faces a 30 billion pound deficit by 2020 and, according
to Tim Kelsey, director for patients and information at NHS England, is set to
"run out of cash."
Each time I visit the UK I read about NHS horror stories.
The Scottish Daily Mail reported on three brutal killings that might have been
prevented were it not for a "catalogue of failings by a (NHS-operated)
mental health trust." One of the men had been refused treatment for
failing to register with a local doctor.
An investigation by the UK Daily Telegraph found that
some patients are forced to wait up to eight hours inside ambulances because
there are not enough beds inside hospitals. Senior NHS doctors and managers say
up to 20 hospitals across the country may close to avoid financial ruin. If you
are sick on a weekend, fewer doctors are available. The Telegraph quotes senior
officials as saying 4,000 lives a year are lost because of poor weekend care.
These officials call the current trend in the NHS "unsustainable."
One health minister referred to scandals and cover-ups in
patient deaths at two hospitals as part of a "rotten culture" in the
NHS. In March, the Daily Mail reported "Nearly 1,200 people have starved
to death in NHS hospitals" because "nurses are too busy to feed
patients." At Stafford Hospital, police are investigating the deaths of
300 patients over a four-year period. They suspect neglect, even criminality,
may have contributed to their deaths. In February, the Telegraph reported
"More than 3,000 people may have died unnecessarily at five NHS
trusts."
Why isn't this a lesson for the U.S.? Why do people
believe government is more competent than the private sector, despite numerous
examples to the contrary?
The Obama administration is pressing ahead with
implementing America's version of the NHS, no doubt expecting different
results. Though postponing the employer mandate until 2015, beginning Oct. 1,
the administration plans to start sending money to states that have already set
up health care exchanges. As Washington Examiner columnist Byron York has
noted, the sooner people become dependent on this latest government program the
more difficult it will be to overturn the law.
Keith Farrington has a "you'll be sorry"
attitude toward America concerning its version of an NHS. He is shocked that we
would scuttle one of the best health systems in the world -- even with its
imperfections, which can be fixed -- for one in which government controls a key
part, which he predicts will produce results similar to the UK.
He speaks from experience. Is anyone in America
listening?
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