Last Friday (Dec 20) David Prior, the chairman of the NHS Care Quality Commission, said NHS quality and patient service are “wholly unsatisfactory.”
Among other things, Prior emphasized that NHS can no longer be treated as a “national religion” in which service reached the brink of crisis because it was “too powerful” to be criticised. He said parts of the NHS were “out of control” because honest debate about the weaknesses of the health service was not tolerated.
On the other hand, Paul Krugman asserts that when Americans hear stories about failures within NHS, we should know that “these stories are false.”
So, who do you believe?
Americans who look to the U.K.’s National Health Service as a model for how government-run health care ought to work, should perhaps be looking more carefully at how government-run health care actually works.
The increasingly impersonal NHS is quite obviously responsible for more and more frequent personal medical care disasters. Will Obamacare bring the same failures here? It's not looking so good right now, is it?
Americans must not hesitate to voice our objections to known failures of Obamacare and other clear weaknesses that threaten our personal health. And we must not back down when we see our own government officials trying to stifle, deflect, or ignore criticism of Obamacare - and disparaging anyone who dares criticize it.
My opinion of Obamacare? We are finding out what is in it. And we are appalled. If you are not worried about this, you’re not paying attention.