Socialized Medicine Is on Life Support in Britain and Canada
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Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Friday, Feb. 27, 2004
Remember our tragicomic report last year on dentally challenged Britain? The decay of socialized medicine has only worsened since then.
The crowning insult: "National Health Service was flying in a dentist from The Netherlands to grapple with the shortage of homegrown dentists in the north Yorkshire town of Scarborough led to scenes recalling Soviet-style queues and World War II rationing days," The Australian reported.
"More than 300 people, many with toothache, lined up in the early morning gloom hoping to register with the new practice so they would gain access to the sort of free or cheap NHS dental care that Tony Blair promised in 1999 would be available to every Briton by 2001.
"Hundreds of people missed out, leaving them facing the harsh choice of paying much more for care at private clinics or making round trips of up to 240km to see NHS dentists.
"There was an even wilder rush in January when a new practice in a Scottish town was besieged by 1500 hopefuls trying to get the 300 places on its books for NHS patients."
The newspaper quoted a poem from Spike Milligan: "English Teeth, heroes' teeth!/Hear them click and clack!/Let's sing a song of praise to them - Three Cheers for the Brown, Grey and Black."
A spokesman for the British Ministry of Health fumed, "British people do not have rubbish teeth."
Dr. John Renshaw, chairman of British Dental Association, told the Associated Press, "What's going on in Scarborough is a classic example of the NHS dentist system breaking down completely."
Oh, Canada
Meanwhile, our neighbor to the north is having even worse problems with its system, which Democrats and other U.S. leftists keep touting to Americans who don't bother to stay informed.
"Canada's premiers say the health-care system will begin to self-destruct by the end of the decade without both an overhaul and a cash influx from the federal Liberals," the Toronto Star reported Wednesday.
"Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said his recent musings about possibly pulling his province out of the Canada Health Act, de-listing some services and forgoing federal funding has not reached the point of serious discussion."
Not quite yet, but there's plenty of time for that discussion to get serious.
So the next time John Kerry starts railing for socialized medicine - oops, "universal health care" - why not learn from other countries' mistakes rather than wait all day in the vain hope of getting what's left of your teeth cleaned?
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