Dealing with the modern left is exhausting. No matter how many facts prove them wrong, they just plug their ears and shout over the truth. You can see countless videos on YouTube showing exactly that.
At this point it’s obvious they’ve completely abandoned discourse. Their judgement is so clouded by Trump Derangement Syndrome that despite knowing in their hearts Trump’s policies they are fighting against are good for the country, they just can’t stop themselves from calling every Trump supporter a racist, a white nationalist, and a xenophobe.
Despite that, we still have to engage with their stupid ideas every day. The reason is because there is an apathetic majority in our country, and people who don’t care are easily manipulated. That’s why we have to discuss single-payer healthcare over and over again.
The left dresses up socialist healthcare so nicely. They make it sound wonderful, but that only works when they can hide the fallout. Single-payer systems fail in a multitude of ways, and one of the most disturbing manifestations of that failure comes in the form of healthcare rationing. It’s real, and when you see this latest example, it will make you sick.
The UK System
Leftists are always bickering about which single-payer healthcare system is the best. Every country gets their turn in the sun, and when it does, the right highlights the flaws of the system, and the left moves on to the next bad example. For a while, Canada and Sweden were the crown jewels. Then, it became apparent that they have the two worst wait times of any healthcare system in the developed world.
The UK has also been a favorite at different times. What the left loves the most about UK health care is that it’s more than just single payer: it’s truly nationalized. That means the state has complete control over the distribution and management of health care — of course the socialists love it.
But, when the government gets to dictate your health care, it usually comes with a big catch. You might remember the internationally famous case of Alfie Evans. This was a child in the UK with a rare medical condition. UK doctors couldn’t treat him. In light of that fact, the Vatican and the U.S. both offered to treat the boy, free of charge. The bureaucrats in the UK denied Alfie and his family the right to health care and determined that he should die a slow, horrible death instead. It was every kind of awful, but the worst part is how common this is.
Leftists will tell you Alfie’s case was unique. Instead, it’s average.
An Epidemic of Blindness
Since 2013, there have been studies and reports that show the UK has a problem with cataract treatments. Patients have to go on long waiting lists before they can receive treatment. Those wait times are so long that every single ophthalmologist polled said that they have patients succumb to permanent blindness while waiting.
Long wait times are endemic to all single-payer systems, but the UK’s nationalized system is notorious for its particular brand of healthcare rationing. Since they don’t have the resources to treat everyone, they come up with some pretty barbaric solutions.
When it comes to cataract treatments, they decided to ration based on life expectancy. No, this isn’t a joke. Several London news agencies have recently reported that the National Health Service has defied recommendations made by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists.
The College noted that geriatric patients were being bumped to the end of wait lists in the hope that they would die before their turn for treatment arrived. When the College found this, they made it public knowledge and recommended that the policy change. That was two years ago.
As of the end of 2018, the UK has seen more than 2,000 geriatric patients go blind every year. Yes, it’s because of this policy. The UK’s plan to ration health care is to sacrifice the elderly in order to save resources. That’s one of the “great” systems championed by the American left.
The Lie of Access
This is the ultimate lie of the left when it comes to health care. They always conflate cost with access. They do it on purpose. They say that if you have to go into debt to receive medical treatment then you don’t really have access to the care. That’s why nationalized or single-payers systems are so much better. When no one pays out of pocket, everyone has access under this definition.
It’s flat out wrong. In the United States, no one can deny you care. They might bill you for it, but they have to provide it. That’s why our wait times are over 10 times shorter than the average European or Canadian single-payer system.
In the UK (and Canada and many other single-payer countries), they actually can deny you care. This blindness epidemic is proof of that. The government has the right to determine which patients receive treatment and which go blind waiting. That only exists in single-payer systems, and it’s exactly what the left wants over here.
It’s classic socialism, and we all know it. The government promises the people a bunch of free stuff. In the guise of supplying that free stuff, they take more and more direct control over our lives. Eventually, they have absolute authority to tell us when to die, and because we gave them power in pursuit of free stuff, we have no means to stop them.
Healthcare reform, gun control and immigration policy aren’t about saving lives or helping people. They never were, and they never will be. They are solely purposed toward increasing the power of government. The insidious promises of the left are nothing more than snake oil, and every concession we make is a permanent loss of freedom. They don’t want to help you. They want absolute control over you. It is megalomania, pure and simple.
The next time a leftist tries to tell you we need single-payer health care, you respond with this. Show them how the UK’s system is rationing treatments and sacrificing the elderly. Destroy their lives with the truth or risk being the sacrificial lamb when that system takes over America.
