Right to Opine

Over a 4 year period a hospital in the UK had around 400 unnecessary death due to horrendous emergency care. Per an inquiry into the outrage,

managers pursued targets at the detriment of patient care.

Targets, in this context, being financial targets set in order to keep costs down. This is what happens when medicine becomes more about cutting costs than treating patients. What else do you expect when the government runs the (increasingly expensive) show?

Gotta love the quotes from British politicians.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, called for a “cultural change so that every part of this trust has open and transparent systems in place to ensure patient safety”.

and

Bill Cash, Conservative MP for Stone, said: “There have been systemic failures in the organisation and I have asked for resolute action to be taken.”

Mr. Lamb, that “cultural change” would be called the Hippocratic Oath. It makes the patient’s health a pretty darned high priority. There must be someone in the UK who’s heard of it.

Mr. Cash, how about this for “resolute action”: scrap socialized medicine. Otherwise you’ll just keep fighting this battle over and over again.

This is, of course, what you get when medical decisions are made by bureaucrats. Obama’s proposal for universal healthcare includes provisions for decisions regarding the availability and coverage for specific treatments. This will lead to denial of care and a reduction in the quality of healthcare we receive…just like we see in the UK.