Beware Universal Health Care

According to British physician Anthony Daniels, the U.K. has the "the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe." He writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The question of health care is not one of rights but of how best in practice to organize it. America is certainly not a perfect model in this regard. But neither is Britain, where a universal right to health care has been recognized longest in the Western world.

Not coincidentally, the U.K. is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for medical treatment if they are physically able to do so.

The government-run health-care system -- which in the U.K. is believed to be the necessary institutional corollary to an inalienable right to health care -- has pauperized the entire population. This is not to say that in every last case the treatment is bad: A pauper may be well or badly treated, according to the inclination, temperament and abilities of those providing the treatment. But a pauper must accept what he is given.

And the paupers here tend to accept what we are given. The only way to combat the chaos of universal (i.e. government-run) health care is to exercise what remains of our liberty and vote the control freaks out of office.

If, however, universal health care is forced upon us, I would hope that freedom-loving doctors, patients, insurers, and employers will choose to ignore the dictates of Washington. Since neither the president nor members of Congress have the constitutional authority to manage our health care, we are under no moral obligation to comply. That's easier said than done, but perhaps we Americans have had it too easy for too long.