Sociallized medicine's toll in England

Almost half of NHS inpatients are receiving treatment within 18 weeks of referral by their GP, according to latest figures.

The Government has set a key target that, by the end of 2008, nobody should wait more than 18 weeks from referral to the start of treatment.

figures, published on Thursday, also show that about one in eight patients are still waiting longer than a year for treatment. [empahsis added]

there were eight hospitals that had seen a "small increase" in waiting times last year and admitted there were still challenges in areas like orthopaedics.

Maybe the Democratic candidates for President, all of them calling for a federal model of some sort for universal health care (one that would inevitably require both rationing and price controls, like the British and Scottish model) ,  can address these unnecessary deaths in one of the European health care utopias, and what makes them think they could do any better.