What Socialized Medicine Looks Like in England

Most of the people who want some type of universal health care have never lived under such a system, otherwise they would think twice. Currently I’m covered under government run health care. It’s called the VA. I’ve been waiting three months to have a suspicious mole looked at. There’s a long line. But under a US universal health care system it could get longer.

Over the next few posts I will highlight stories that you should read to see how the “Jones’ are doing.   Here’s how it is in England.

• Kidney cancer patients denied life-saving drugs by NHS rationing body NICE
  - April 29, 2009 [Daily Mail (UK)]

• Girl, 3, has heart operation cancelled three times because of bed shortage
  - David Rose, April 23, 2009 [Times Online]

• Number of children going to hospital to have teeth pulled soars by 66% since 1997
  - Daniel Martin and Cher Thornhill, April 12, 2009 [Daily Mail (UK)]

• NHS ‘failings’ over elderly falls
  - March 25, 2009 [BBC]

• Learning disabled ‘failed by NHS’
  - Nick Triggle, March 24, 2009 [BBC]

• Cancer survivor confronts the health secretary on 62-day wait
  - Lyndsay Moss, March 21, 2009 [The Scotsman]

• Culture of targets prevents nurses from tending to patients
  - Claire Rayner, President of the Patients Association, March 21, 2009 [Telegraph UK]

• Children being failed by health system, says head of watchdog
  - Sarah Boseley, March 21, 2009 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Our cancer shame: Survival rates still lag behind EU despite spending billions
  - Jenny Hope, March 20, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Failing hospital ’caused deaths’
  - March 17, 2009 [BBC]

• Health gap drive ‘wasted money’
  - Nick Triggle, March 14, 2009 [BBC]

• Longer GP opening hours branded wasteful ‘PR exercise’ by doctors
  - Lyndsay Moss, March 13, 2009 [The Scotsman]

• “Political meddling” threatens general practice, warns GP leader
  - March 13, 2009 [Management in Practice (UK)]

• Children at risk through lack of training for doctors and nurses, report warns
  - Rebecca Smith, March 13, 2009 [Telegraph UK]

• Chocolate should be taxed to control obesity epidemic, doctors are told
  - Simon Johnson, March 13, 2009 [Telegraph UK]

• 1,000 villagers wait for a dentist after just one NHS practice opens
  - March 10, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Study that proves the folly of NHS Alzheimer’s drug ban
  - Jenny Hope, March 7, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• NHS charges to rise in England
  - March 5, 2009 [BBC]

• Disabled children wait up to two years for wheelchairs
  - March 4, 2009 [Guardian Unlimited]

• NHS under fire over waiting times
  - February 25, 2009 [The Scotsman]

• Government procrastination blamed for HIV-contaminated blood tragedy
  - February 23, 2009 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Specialist nurses ‘vastly overworked’
  - February 20, 2009 [Harwich & Manningtree Standard]

• Hundreds of operations cancelled at Lothian hospitals
  - Adam Morris, February 19, 2009 [The Scotsman]

• Stop asking for antibiotics to cure coughs and colds, Government tells patients
  - Daniel Martin, February 17, 2009 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Stroke services are ‘UK’s worst’
  - February 17, 2009 [BBC]

• Hospitals curb caesarean births
  - Sarah-Kate Templeton, February 15, 2009 [The Times]

• Only five out of 51 hospital trusts pass hygiene test, say inspectors
  - Sarah Boseley, November 24, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Top doctors slam NHS drug rationing
  - Sarah-Kate Templeton, August 24, 2008 [The Times]

• Heart patients dying due to poor hospital care, says report
  - Sarah Boseley, June 8, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]

• NHS dentistry loses almost a million patients after new dentists’ contract
  - David Rose, June 6, 2008 [The Times]

• Private healthcare managers could be sent to turn round failing NHS hospitals
  - Philip Webster, Political Editor, and David Rose, June 4, 2008 [The Times]

• Cancer patients ‘betrayed’ by NHS
  - Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 1, 2008 [The Times]

• NHS scandal: dying cancer victim was forced to pay
  - Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 1, 2008 [The Times]

• Pensioner, 76, forced to pull out own teeth after 12 NHS dentists refuse to treat her
  - Olinka Koster, March 26, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Dental patients face care lottery
  - March 26, 2008 [Metro(UK)]

• Lung patients ‘condemned to death as NHS withdraws their too expensive drugs’
  - Jenny Hope, March 24, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Women in labour turned away by maternity units
  - John Carvel, March 21, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Health inequality has got worse under Labour, says government report
  - Andrew Sparrow, March 13, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Angry GPs reluctantly accept plan for weekend and evening surgeries
  - John Carvel, March 7, 2008 [Guardian Unlimited]

• NHS chiefs tell grandmother, 61, she’s ‘too old’ for £5,000 life-saving heart surgery
  - Chris Brooke, February 28, 2008 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Patient ‘removed’ from waiting list to meet target
  - January 31, 2008 [The Scotsman]

• NHS patients told to treat themselves
  - James Kirkup, January 4, 2008 [Telegraph UK]

• NHS is ‘failing patients’ despite record funding
  - Rebecca Smith, October 4, 2007 [Telegraph UK]

• NHS rationing rife, say doctors
  - September 24, 2007 [BBC]

• One in eight patients waiting over a year for treatment, admits minister
  - John Carvel, June 8, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]

• Audit Office asked to investigate record £500m NHS underspend
  - John Carvel, May 30, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]

• The drugs the NHS won’t give you
  - May 11, 2007 [Telegraph UK]

• UK lagging behind on cancer drug access, study finds
  - May 10, 2007 [Guardian Unlimited]

• One in six trusts is still putting patients on mixed-sex wards
  - Daniel Martin, May 10, 2007 [Daily Mail(UK)]

• Specialist stroke care ‘lottery’
  - May 9, 2007 [BBC News]

• Smokers and the obese banned from UK hospitals
  - May 2, 2007 [Healthcare News]

• Cancer patients told life-prolonging treatment is too expensive for NHS
  - Lyndsay Moss, February 13, 2007 [The Scotsman]

• UK health service “harms 10 percent of patients”
  - Kate Kelland, July 7, 2006 [Reuters]

• 5,000 elderly ‘killed each year’ by lack of care beds
  - June 26, 2006 [Telegraph UK]

• Dental Socialism in Britain
  - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., May 9, 2006 [LewRockwell.com]

• Pay for nurses and surgeons doubles NHS overspend
  - Beezy Marsh, Patrick Hennessy and Nina Goswami, April 23, 2006 [Telegraph UK]

• The money addicts: it’s your cash they are gambling with
  - Patience Wheatcroft, April 23, 2006 [Telegraph UK]

• NHS chiefs get luxury car deals
  - Daniel Foggo and Steven Swinford, April 9, 2006 [The Times]

• Secret NHS plan to ration patient care
  - Nigel Hawkes, April 7, 2006 [The Times]

• British Healthcare To Be Rationed
  - April 7, 2006 [United Press International]

• British body rejects EPO drugs for cancer patients
  - March 17, 2006 [Reuters]

• National Health Service – Grappling with Deficits
  - March 9, 2006 [Economist.com]

• Hundreds wait to register as another dentist quits the NHS
  - Martin Williams, September 23, 2005 [The Herald (Scotland)]

• Life-saving cancer drugs ‘kept from NHS patients by red tape’
  - Sam Lister, September 20, 2005 [The Times]

• NHS slides into the red despite record increases in health care spending
  - September 20, 2005 [Telegraph UK]

• Alzheimer’s sufferers hit by further delay in NHS approval for vital drugs
  - Michael Day, September 18, 2005 [Telegraph UK]

• We all pay a price for our ‘free’ NHS
  - John Smith, August 19, 2005 [The Scotsman]

• 2,000 British doctors out of work
  - August 14, 2005 [The Washington Times]

• UK health ‘unsustainable’
  - August 14, 2005 [Finance24]

• NHS faces rising bill for negligence claims
  - Ben Hall, August 8, 2005 [Financial Times]

• British boy to go to India for operation
  - August 5, 2005 [United Press International]

• NHS failed to stop doctor raping scores of women
  - Lois Rogers and Jonathon Carr-Brown, July 31, 2005 [The Times]

• Top crimewriter funds drugs for cancer victim refused by NHS
  - Martyn Halle, July 8, 2005 [Telegraph UK]

• Report says NHS is mired in huge debts
  - David Simms, June 25, 2005 [ABC Money (UK)]

• U.K. set to restrict smoking
  - June 21, 2005 [The Associated Press]

• NHS ‘fund bias’ against men may cost 2,500 lives a year
  - Sarah-Kate Templeton, June 19, 2005 [The Times]

• Doubts on funding NHS ‘monuments’
  - Nicholas Timmins, June 10, 2005 [Financial Times]

• 17 million reasons why we must improve hospital meals
  - June 7, 2005 [Cambridge Evening News]

• Figures show more patients waiting for operations
  - June 3, 2005 [Guardian UK]

• Scarcity of NHS dental treatment is revealed
  - Celia Hall, May 19, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]

• Why NHS Opposes ‘Treatment by Demand’ for the Dying
  - Stephen Howard and Jan Colley, PA, May 18, 2005 [Scotsman]

• 800 queue for NHS dentists
  - May 5, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]

• Hundreds more heroin addicts to be given a fix on the NHS
  - Nic Fleming, April 25, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]

• British health service facing nurse exodus
  - April 25, 2005 [United Press International]

• About 400 patients a year in Scotland succumb to MRSA
  - April 25, 2005 [Scotsman]

• NHS debts soar to over £1bn
  - Karyn Miller, April 24, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]

• British taxpayers foot $26.5 million bill for abortion tourists
  - April 18, 2005 [Catholic World News]

• U.K. Liberal Democrats Would Raise Taxes to Pay for Health Care
  - Reed Landberg, April 14, 2005 [Bloomberg]

• Number of NHS Bureaucrats ‘Rising Faster Than Health Staff’
  - Joe Churcher, March 22, 2005 [Scotsman]

• ‘£500m hole’ in hospital budgets
  - Celia Hall, March 21, 2005 [telegraph.co.uk]

• 1,000 Scots desert NHS every week
  - Murdo Macleod, March 5, 2005 [Scotsman]

• British NHS facing financial crisis
  - March 3, 2005 [Washington Times]

• NHS drugs regulator to withdraw approval of Alzheimer’s treatment
  - Nicholas Timmins, March 2, 2005 [FT.com - Financial Times]

• NHS waiting list rises
  - February 11, 2005 [Guardian UK]

• Tumour patients hit by NHS shortages
  - Jo Revill, February 6, 2005 [Guardian UK]

• NHS financial crises set to outlast winter
  - Mike Waites, February 4, 2005 [Yorkshire Post]

• NHS 24 ‘priority’ callers wait four hours for advice
  - Caroline Wilson, January 14, 2005 [Evening Times (UK)]

• ‘No strategy’ on NHS waiting time
  - January 14, 2005 [BBC]

• Output figures show NHS decline
  - John Carvel, October 19, 2004 [Guardian UK]

• Heart patients die on waiting lists
  - Peter Sharples, October 18, 2004 [Manchester Online]

• £25bn overspend feared for NHS computer network
  - Karen Attwood, October 12, 2004 [telegraph.co.uk]

• Gaps in care cost £7bn, says charity
  - John Carvel, October 4, 2004 [Guardian UK]

• NHS excluding poor people, UK
  - September 15, 2004 [Medical News Today]

• Smokers ‘should not get NHS care’
  - September 6, 2004 [BBC News]

• Waiting list row blights Brighton
  - John Carvel, September 4, 2004 [Guardian UK]

• Patients are denied the last rites under data protection law
  - Elizabeth Day, July 25, 2004 [telegraph.co.uk]

• Shortage of dentists to double by 2011
  - John Carvel, July 24, 2004 [Guardian UK]

• Britain’s stiff upper lip gives way to a snarl
  - Sarah Lyall, July 18, 2004 [The New York Times]

• Hospital Overcrowding A Cause of Superbug Infections
  - John von Radowitz, July 1, 2004 [Scotsman.com]

• Hospital Crisis: Fallen Angels
  - Lindsay Mcgarvie, May 23, 2004 [Glasgow Sunday Mail]

• Study finds British hospitals are still austere, cold, smelly and poorly maintained
  - May 6, 2004 [News-Medical.net]

• Hospital bathrooms and showers: a continuing saga of inadequacy
  - Andy Monro, MRCP & Graham P Mulley, DM, FRCP, May 2004 [Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine]

• Majority back public smoking ban
  - March 24, 2004 [BBC]

• Discrimination Rampant In British Health Care
  - Peter Moore, November 17, 2003 [365gay.com]

• PERIPATETICS—To the Medical Socialists of All Parties
  - Sheldon Richman, September 2003 [FEE.org]

• Creeping Privatization?
  Shortages of skilled workers, low morale, long queues for services, crumbling facilities and corrupt practises. - Roland Watson, August 6, 2001 [LewRockwell.com]

• The World’s Worst HMO
  - Stephen D. Moore, November 24, 1999 [Random Thoughts]

• Socialized Medicine in Great Britain: Lessons for the Oregon Health Plan
  - Professor John Spiers, March 18, 1999 [Cascade Policy Institute]

• The Sickbed Which is Socialized British Medicine
  - December 23, 1997 [NCPA]

• The British Way of Withholding Care
  - Harry Schwarz, March 1989 [FEE.org]

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