A ‘Me-Too’ Tory Warning On Health Care Reform

Washington Examiner ^ | August 17, 2009 | Editorial staff

[WhiteCastle]

President Ronald Reagan once said “federal programs are the nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this Earth.” There is a timely reminder of Reagan’s maxim in the weekend’s headlines from across the Big Pond in Britain, where Tory leader David Cameron went out of his way to reassure voters there that he and his party are just as committed to defending the National Health Service as the Labor Party. “No one should be in any doubt, for the Conservative Party, the NHS is our number one priority,” Cameron told the Daily Mail Online. Cameron was reacting to comments by Daniel Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament, during his recent U.S. tour.

So British voters have little hope that a new Tory government will mean an end of the long lines waiting to see a doctor, or to get a critically needed treatment for dread diseases like breast cancer. Britons have lived under the NHS for 60 years, and the results are there for the world to see. Breast cancer mortality rates are 88 percent higher in Britain than in the U.S., while prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher there than here, and the colorectal cancer mortality rate among British men and women is about 40 percent higher than here in the U.S.

No wonder Hannan told Americans in a series of television interviews and speeches that we should avoid a British-type government-run health care system. Hannan called the NHS a “60-year mistake,” and encouraged Americans to “ponder our example and tremble.”

[USFRIENDINVICTORIA]

“Tory leader David Cameron went out of his way to reassure voters there that he and his party are just as committed to defending the National Health Service as the Labor Party.”

An old political joke in Canada runs something like this:

At an all candidates debate, the Conservative candidate promised that his party would continue to support cradle-to-grave health care.

The Liberal candidate retorted that his party stands for conception-to-deterioration health care.

The NDP (Socialist) candidate scoffed: “that’s nothing, our party stands for erection-to-resurrection health care.

[Nosterrex]

This should be our primary concern. Once Obamacare is passed and signed into law, neither political party will ever be able to reverse it. It will exist as long as America exists. Unless there is a true revolution in the American government, and not a mild reformation, which we have had from time to time, none of these welfare programs are going to be eliminated. People will always vote for government freebies unless things become so bad that the freebies are no longer free. When the goose that lays the golden egg is dead, there will be a revolution. What the consequences of that revolution will be, only God knows.

[Little Ray]

Hmmm.
How ‘bout a two tier program for NHS - pony up cash for your health care and go to the head of the line. The more cash you’re willing to spend, the further up the line you go - pay for the whole thing and go right to front (subject to first come, first served).
Also subject the realistic needs of emergency medical triage, too.

[GeronL]

NUFF SAID

[Califelephant]

“No one should be in any doubt, for the Conservative Party, the NHS is our number one priority,...”

Not national defense.
Not the economy.
Not immigration, education, or transporation.

No, the #1 priority is the National Health Service.

That’s insane. But that’s what happens with nationalized health care. Instead of a NATION, you end up with a health care provider that in its spare time is also a country.

[Army Air Corps]

Instead of a NATION, you end up with a health care provider that in its spare time is also a country.

I like that and wish to appropriate it.

[Califelephant]

Yes, please do.