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March 19, 2009

Welcome to national health care (updated)

Thomas Lifson
When the renowned efficiency of government bureaucracy gets ahold of your health care, this is predictable. Via AFP:

Britain apologises for 'Third World' hospital

The British government apologised Wednesday after a damning official report into a hospital likened by one patient's relative to "a Third World" health centre.

Stafford Hospital in central England was found to have appalling standards of care, putting patients at risk and leading to some dying, according to a report on Tuesday.

Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period at the National Health Service (NHS) hospital, according to an investigation by the Healthcare Commission watchdog.

Note: these deaths are at one hospital.

"We do apologise to all those people who have suffered from the mistakes that have been made in the Stafford Hospital," said Prime Minister Gordon Brown, questioned on the matter at his weekly grilling in the House of Commons.

Receptionists with no medical training were left to to assess patients arriving at the hospital's accident and emergency department, the report found.

Those apologies must be of great comfort. Get ready for similar comfort if President Obama has his way.

Hat tip: Jerry Long

Update -- Cliff Thier writes: 

According to the US Census there are 7,569 hospitals in the United States.

(More useful would be knowing the number of beds Stafford Hospital has and whether or not it has a "typical" assortment of patients and diseases)

However, assuming (a great deal) that Stafford is a representative hospital in Great Britain, if US health care is nationalized and US hospitals are run as well as Stafford Hospital, that would result in 1,009,200 to 3,027,600 extra deaths a year. Even if its one tenth of the lower figure, every year 100,000 people will die because Democrats need to feel good about themselves.

Killing to feel good about yourself is the mark of a serial killer.

Maybe that's how Obama will fix the Social Security problem.

Nationalized health care kills.

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