The next time some dreamy pinko starts whining about how wonderful Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is, feel free to show him or her this article (when you are done kicking their ass, of course):
The NHS waiting list in England is the longest it has been in 11 years, official figures have revealed today.
A staggering 4,154,559 people – around six per cent of the entire UK population – were waiting to start hospital treatment at the end of August. This number is the highest it has been since August 2007, and more than 3,000 people have been waiting more than a year for routine treatment.
A&E [ER] departments are also getting busier and cancer treatment waiting times have been missed for the 32nd month in a row, NHS data showed. Experts today warned ‘alarm bells’ are ringing and the health service is heading straight for another winter crisis as it buckles under ‘relentless pressure’. An ageing population and shortages of doctors and nurses have been blamed for increasing strain on the NHS and it taking longer to treat patients.
But hey… as long as it’s free, right?
And speaking of free, of course it turns out that “free” also means “rationing” (emphasis mine):
Shortages of Fluad, a new super-vaccine offering better protection for over-65s, means pensioners across the country are being turned away by GPs. Deliveries of the vaccine to surgeries and pharmacies are being staggered due to supply problems and 40 per cent of the 7.8 million doses will not be available until next month.
The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended Fluad last December, but it took NHS England until February 5 to tell GPs and pharmacies they needed to buy it. Clinics that failed to order by the April 12 deadline have had no stock delivered, forcing them to beg for supplies from others.
So if you’re (say) 63 years old, British and catch a potentially-deadly strain of flu, that’s just too bad. Life’s lottery — or, to be more precise, the NHS lottery — just gave it to you between the cheeks.
Wear boots when kicking.
As Thomas Sowell once said, “If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it’s ‘free'”.
Its all simply a misunderstanding….socialized medicine doesn’t mean “free healthcare”, it means “healthcare free”. Of course, if you’re a “top” socialist, its free for me and not for thee. 😛
I’d want a source more reputable than the Daily Mail before making any comments.
Ask the Pinko how many Americans fly to the UK or Canada for treatment.
It’s just a variant of the comment that nobody ever sailed in a leaky boat over the stormy shark infested water from Florida to Cuba to find a better life. Or braved death to climb the Berlin wall from West to East.
I live in Canada and know just exactly how bad our system is, so don’t you beat them, send them up here and I’ll do it. Or maybe my 84 year old mother in law will. She has one very painful artificial hip that was installed here in Canada after you Americans stopped using it because it was defective. Our system bought the stock that you Yanks refused and plugged it into helpless old people.
What drives me absolutely fucking nuts is how many Canadians tell me how wonderful their “free” healthcare is, and then in the same breath complain about all the problems.
I’m not talking little problems, but major, serious, problems of incredible wait times, incompetent treatment, and a whole host of other issues.
And when I point it out to them, their minds cannot recover from the obvious cognitive dissonance.
Amazing!