The healthcare system we've been waiting for is already here

For statists and their juvenile obsession with all things Euro we offer the following:

Not a single official has been disciplined over the worst-ever NHS hospital scandal, it emerged last night.

Up to 1,200 people lost their lives needlessly because Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust put government targets and cost-cutting ahead of patient care. But none of the doctors, nurses and managers who failed them has suffered any formal sanction.
Indeed, some have either retired on lucrative pensions or have swiftly found new jobs.

Former chief executive Martin Yeates, who has since left with 1 million pound pension pot, six months’ salary and a reported 400,000 pound payoff, did not even give evidence to the inquiry which detailed the scale of the scandal yesterday.

He was said to be medically unfit to do so, though he sent some information to chairman Robert Francis through his solicitor.

The devastating-report into the Stafford Hospital-shambles’ laid waste to Labour’s decade-long obsession with box-ticking and league tables.

The independent inquiry headed by Robert Francis QC found the safety of sick and dying patients was ‘routinely neglected’. Others were subjected to ‘inhumane treatment’, ‘bullying’, ‘abuse’ and ‘rudeness’

Last night the General Medical Council announced it was investigating several doctors. The Nursing and Midwifery Council is investigating at least one nurse and is considering other cases.

Ministers suggested the report highlighted a dreadful ‘local scandal’ but its overall conclusions are a blistering condemnation of Labour’s approach to the NHS.
It found that hospitals were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they ‘lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safer care’.

Imagine that. A hospital and an entire health care system that kind of forgot about that whole keeping people alive thing. And this is what we have to get done over here on this side of the pond? This is the health care system we’ve been waiting for?

But even in the aftermath of this scandal, the Brits still don’t get it. They think that firing or disciplining people is going to solve this problem? That it’s the Labour Party that is responsible for the appalling condition of Mid-Staffordshire?

This is not a “gotcha” or some unfortunate isolated case. This is the systemic face of statism where the needs of the individual are plowed under and compassion sacraficed at the alter of equality.

And you think it will be different over here? When the overriding priority of your healthcare system is “bending the cost curve downward”, this is what happens. Rationing of services is the natural outcome of this prioritization and price controls will ultimately result in sub-standard doctors, nurses and other health care workers.

The Brits think that disciplining individuals or a change in political parties are going to be the answer when it’s the system that is inherently and fatally flawed.

There is a constant to the authoritarian nature of statism and the big umbrella of collectivism and that is the appalling disregard for the individual in favor of preservation of "the system" and the status quo.