As an admitted socialist, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) has been a huge supporter of socialized medicine.
In his home state of Vermont, and in the U.S. Senate, he has been the leading advocate for it.
But one piece of world news just destroyed all of his dreams of socialism in the U.S.
Virtually anytime Bernie or any supporter of single-payer healthcare tries to argue its merits, they point at Europe.
They have been specifically fond of Britain, and their National Health Service (NHS).
Donald Berwick, the former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Obama administration once stated that he is “romantic about the NHS,” and that he “loves it.”
But despite the Democrat and socialists love triangle for the NHS, it is not shared by much of the British people who are forced to live under the system.
In recent weeks, every hospital in the country was ordered to cancel over 50,000 non-urgent surgeries, and to cease all future non-urgent surgeries until at least February.
This order came after claims were made by senior doctors that hospitals were so overcrowded that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions.
As reported by The Telegraph:
“Every hospital in the country has been ordered to cancel all non-urgent surgery until at least February in an unprecedented step by NHS officials.
The instructions on Tuesday night – which will see result in around 50,000 operations being axed – followed claims by senior doctors that patients were being treated in “third world” conditions, as hospital chief executives warned of the worst winter crisis for three decades.
Hospitals are reporting growing chaos, with a spike in winter flu leaving frail patients facing 12-hour waits, and some units running out of corridor space.”
Supporters of the single-payer healthcare system in Britain are claiming that this hiccup is simply due to a spike in winter flu patients.
And while they claim the system is normally very efficient, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Just last year hospitals in Britain hit record overcrowding levels with up to 99% of beds being occupied in many hospitals.
As Daily Mail reported in May of last year:
“Hospital overcrowding is at its highest level on record, official figures show.
More than 91 percent of beds are occupied at the average trust, although at some the rates are 99 percent.
This is the highest since records began in 2000 and well above the 85 percent level considered safe.
Experts said the NHS was under ‘extraordinary pressure’ and in the grip of a year-long crisis. Research has consistently shown that when hospitals are overcrowded, patients are at much higher risk of infection and poor care.
According to figures from NHS England, the average hospital was 91.4 percent occupied in the three months to the end of March. This was up from 90.6 percent in the three months to the end of December and well above the 86.3 percent figure when records began in June 2000.”
So clearly something is wrong with Britain’s healthcare system.
Despite this, many Democrats, like Bernie Sanders are advocating for the same system in place in Britain, instead of considering freeing up the healthcare system to allow more free market choices.
Do you think the government needs to get out of healthcare?
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