Home socialism Whom Will Socialized Medicine Kill?
Home socialism Whom Will Socialized Medicine Kill?

Whom Will Socialized Medicine Kill?

Four of the 2020 Democrats fighting to claim the White House have endorsed banning private health insurance and forcing everyone into a national socialist medical system overseen by the government.

“Health care for all is a right, not a privilege,” Senator Bernie Sanders said. His call to abolish private health insurance was endorsed by Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Cory Booker.

Sanders promises that government health care will cover everyone, provide everything, at no charge, and will be open to everyone. His models are the national socialist medical systems of European nations.

Like the NHS.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in his first speech, argued that it shouldn’t take three weeks to see a GP under the NHS. Despite the well-known failings of Britain’s National Health Service, financial, medical, and ethical, it continues to be touted by, among others, MSNBC, as a model for the United States.

And yet the NHS also shows how a national socialist medical system is able to deny care and even kill.

Americans were riveted by the forced euthanasia of Baby Charlie last year, but the pressure to cut costs is manifested in ways that are less devastating, but more comprehensive. Despite Senator Sanders’ false statements, no system can or will provide care for everyone. Just like private health insurance, it will seek ways to cut costs by denying care. But a national socialist system will deny care on a larger scale by evaluating the value of people’s lives while penalizing their behaviors in almost eugenic ways.

That’s the case with the NHS obsession with obesity.

Michael Buerk, the host of the BBC's Moral Maze, recently argued that the NHS should let obese people die. "The obese will die a decade earlier than the rest of us. See it as a selfless sacrifice in the fight against demographic imbalance, overpopulation and climate change."

Buerk pointed to NHS estimates that obesity costs the NHS £6.1 billion a year. "Who can calculate how much an obese person would have cost if they were slim?"

As a BBC host, Buerk is part of a different arm of the socialist octopus than the NHS. But his mindset comes out of the same political culture in which some must die so that others may get health care.

Last year, Steven Simons, the NHS boss, warned, “Obesity is the new smoking and the scale of our response needs to match the scale of the crisis.”

But the NHS has taken measures that go far beyond encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

Responding to budgetary problems, some NHS hospitals began denying routine and non-urgent operations to obese patients. That includes knee and hip operations without which patients, especially elderly patients, can be effectively disabled and on a track to a rapid decline and death.

The wait for hip and knee procedures can already take as long as a year. That meant that patients could be trapped in pain and partially disabled for even longer than a year. The elderly might lose their lives.

The new approach, Brits were told, “saves the NHS and taxpayers millions of pounds.”

“It’s the only way providers are going to be able to balance their books," Chris Hopson, the head of NHS providers, said.

Government health insurance, like private health insurance, denies care to save money. The difference is that when the government consolidates control over health insurance, there’s no alternative.

But overweight people had become political targets. And denying them care was seen as politically safe, at least somewhat safer than euthanizing sick babies, because they could be blamed for the situation.

The truth though was that was just a reason to rationalize resource shortages and denial of care.

That was 2016. This year, the NHS has been accused of denying fertility treatments to overweight women and even to ordinary women whose husbands happen to be overweight. The obesity might be unrelated to the treatment, but it provided a moral pretext for denying care to ‘bad people’.

BMI, rather than financial resources, had become the new barrier to obtaining medical care.

And the NHS leadership tended to conflate the two. The heavier you were, the more money you were costing the NHS, and the more likely you were to bankrupt the national socialist health care system.

"If as a nation we keep piling on the pounds around the waistline, we’ll be piling on the pounds in terms of future taxes needed just to keep the NHS afloat,” Steven Simons warned.

Simons and the NHS openly intertwined the “sustainability” of the NHS and public eating habits.

Government health care couldn’t be expected to function until people lost weight. And until people lost weight, they couldn’t be expected to benefit from a working government health care system.

The eugenic qualities of the NHS were undeniable and inevitable. And they reveal the lie behind the promises of endless care touted by Sanders, Warren and Harris in their proposal for a national socialist health care system, that eliminates Medicare, but that they falsely describe as, ‘Medicare-for-All”.

Under a national socialist system of medicine, your health is no longer your personal business, or that of your doctor, or your insurance company. Your physical condition is political and everyone’s business.

Socialist medicine claims to be based not on vulgar profits, but on morals. Even though it denies health care for financial reasons, it must wrap those fiscal arguments in a moral crusade. It can’t deny health care to deserving people, only to the undeserving or those who would be better off dead.

Private insurance companies can make fiscal arguments without dehumanizing their victims. National socialist medicine however must first demonstrate why its victims truly don’t deserve to live.

If the targets are to be blamed for their own fate, they must first be dehumanized. And if they are to be mercy killed, as the disabled often are, then the campaign dismisses them as hopeless cases.

"This man suffering from a hereditary defect will cost the German people 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime," a popular Nazi eugenics poster read. "Fellow citizen, that is your money too."

NHS rhetoric about obesity closely echoes the classic arguments of national socialist medicine.

The Nazis consolidated control over the health care system. Like modern socialists, they built up an extensive system of benefits, freebies and entitlements for Germans. The National Socialist People's Welfare organization was the envy of progressives worldwide. And by centralizing control over the medical system, the Nazis claimed to be able to offer better and more efficient care for everyone.

But, like all socialist medicine, the Nazi health care system was based around a collective need, not the needs of individual patients. That was how the Nazi medical system could rationalize the Aktion T4 mass murder of hundreds of thousands of disabled patients for the collective benefit of society.

The integration of the medical system allowed for the swift identification, seizure and killing of the elderly and disabled. By tying together a vast network of medical practitioners and facilities, the Nazis were able to carry out a program of eugenic mass murder on a previously impossible scale.

Family members were told that their children, their parents and their relatives were getting free health care. The entire system covered everything, including transportation in free ambulances.

And so, a socialist medical system that had been created to provide care for everyone was transformed into a mass murder scheme that would save money and make it more viable and sustainable.

To use both the Nazi and the NHS terms.

Nazi eugenics was a worst-case scenario. But the logic of socialized medicine requires some eugenics. When everyone can’t be treated, then a group must be denied care based on their unworthiness.

Medicare-for-All, the euphemism that is as misleading as the Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutional Care that carried out mass murders in Nazi Germany, will have to ration care. Despite all the false promises, it will do so by finding medical scapegoats for its economic eugenics.

The only question is whom will it kill?






Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.

Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

  1. The Conservative Curmudgeon29/8/19

    When the "Nazi" comparison is used against Trump his supporters raise holy hell but using it against the left seems to be O.K.....why should this hypocrisy surprise me when they ignore all the other "whataboutisms".


    During the entire Obama administration we heard how if we elected enough Republicans to take control of Congress they would repeal Obamacare. In fact when they had control of the House during the Obama administration they voted over 100 times to repeal it while the Democrat Senate stood in their way. Once they had control of both Houses and the Executive branch it was painfully obvious they had no plan to repeal nor replace Obamacare. It was all a scam by the elected grifters in order to perpetuate their re-election. It is now accepted even by the Republicans that some form of socialized medicine is being demanded by the American public and if they wish to be relevant and stay in office they must adapt. Like every other issue today however they are like deer's caught in the headlights and don't know what to do. When you have a failure in party leadership to lead and the head of your party is Captain Queeg who's main concern is irrelevant news items don't expect much.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous29/8/19

    D. Greenfield: “When everyone can’t be treated,
    then a group must be denied care based on their
    unworthiness.”

    H. Clinton: “Basket of Deplorables.”

    Most on the Right think the Left just needs a
    little more information. The Left thinks the
    Right is evil, period.

    With a patient’s medical and political history
    available to Democrat Medicare For All, what’s
    the prognosis for smoking fat Republicans?

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Conservative Curmudgeon29/8/19

    The scene Republican headquarters Fall 2019 discussing strategy for the 2020 election:


    "Lets see what apocalyptical crisis can we run on for the next 10 to 15 years that the gullible will fall for this time? The Clintons aren't running so forget about using them. Repealing Obamacare?.......no we couldn't do that when we had the two houses and the Executive branch. Build the wall?.......No again we couldn't do that when we had the majority. Stopping socialism? Well that might be a stretch with Sen. Majority Leader "Moscow Mitch" not allowing any voter protection bill to go through Congress, his O.K. to lifting sanctions against a Russian or Kentucky getting an aluminum plant from the same Russian. The hell with what the gullible think lets take the same tact Senators Tom Cotton and Graham take about the China trade wars. Tell America you have to take a little pain if you want to be patriotic. NO PAIN NO GAIN. Waving the flag always gets them !

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous29/8/19

    Esteemed C. Curmudgeon;
    Yes, in 2017, both Republican Chambers had
    bills already written to abolish Obamacare,
    simplify/lower Income Tax, build the Wall,
    eliminate crippling energy and trade limits,
    brake ruinous spending. Trump would have
    been happy to sign, but remember, he was
    fighting a palace revolution.

    The battle lines were actually Trump and a
    very few loyalist family and friends on our
    side. AGAINST: traitorous Executive Branch
    holdovers, bitter Never-Trumpers in the
    Legislature, a possibly blackmailed Chief
    Justice, Media, Entertainment, Academia.

    Tenacious Dem opposition, even against the
    national interest, is more honorable than
    the RINO backstabbing and feckless posing.
    The opportunity for real improvement is so
    rare that wasting it is unforgivable.

    Charlie

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous30/8/19

    In this country, the Left would deny care to men on a political basis. Certainly an operation to make someone “transgender” would take precedence over a heart operation to some “old” guy in a MAGA hat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Conservative Curmudgeon30/8/19

    @ The Honorable Anonymous Charlie:


    Politics today is immersed in mediocrities and charlatans who once elected become either paralyzed by power, party hierarchy or are influenced by mortgaging their political souls to lobbying and special interest groups. The 115th Congress can hardly be considered policy wonkery since it has been determined by Pew Research that they passed the 4th fewest number of meaningful legislation in the past 30 years. Backstabbing? The Republicans in Congress are preceived as showing a willingness either consciously or subconsciously to overlook the Presidents irrational temper tantrums and irresponsible behavior. They however see the consequences their actions have on the American public and are retiring in droves. Lastly the 2018 midterm election (as well as the 2020 election probably will be) wasn't ran on accomplishments or any vision but fear and anger. I have thoughts on why nothing gets done by our elected Republican despots but that's for another time.

    I realize your frustration but as little as was accomplished the crisis the President faces is of his own making. You may admire his pugnaciousness and sticking it to the left but in reality he cares little about the well being of his base. Case in point is how he is handling the trade war with China. China isn't paying for his machismo ego trip but the American consumer is, not only in raised prices but reimbursing the farmers. This has the similar effect as his shutting down the government for 36 days. Americans paid handily for that ego trip also and got NOTHING in return. Perhaps this has to do with the administration being composed entirely of "YES SIR" men and the vacancy of any people who have background in these areas. But then again he has a habit of constantly stomping on his own nuts. Proof there isn't any need for a conspiracy theory. His dubious behavior only serves the purpose of feeding the left for criticism and media beast for film at 11.


    Without needlessly rehashing all the bonehead things he has said and done and being shrugged off I'll try to tie up the knots. When he states "Article II of the Constitution gives me the right to do whatever I want." it proves beyond a doubt that he's both illiberal and illiterate and shouldn't be running the country.

    B.T.W......All the Executive Orders the President has signed are ephemeral and can and will be overturned by the next Democratic administration. .................C.C.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous31/8/19

    Let´s face it, if something is free of charge, it can´t be very good. Don´t worry though. Dems can offset a worsening health care with a demographic change. Afro Africans don´t complain much about poorly qualified NGO ‘health personnel’ that couldn´t cut it at home.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous31/8/19

    Living in a socialist country with socialized medicine I can tell you who kills socialized medicine: Bloated Bureaucracies of managers, directors, consultants, equity speciliasts, researchers, community NGO experts, HR anything, greedy/bitter unions, completely incompetent staff at all levels hired for "oppression categories" and not skills.

    Daniel, as someone born and trapped in Canada, I liked your Frontpage comments on Canada! Do you know why the maple leaf is the symbol of Canada? Because it's a country full of saps. The only "identity" in Canada is not being American and 99% of Canadians believe this alone makes them morally superior. They think hating the US makes them European and internationally cosmopolitan. Canadians are literally the most supercilious people on the planet! They may not have invented political correctness but they devour it like mothers' faux-socialist milk.

    btw Justin Falsedeau's Canadadodoland according to govt web sites now officially has 3 groups of residents:

    1) "Indigenous" (native Indians who own all the land and if you look on all govt funded web sites you will read their mandatory Indian reconciliation/white shaming oath such as this from a randomly selected Canadian University: :(This) University acknowledges the ancestral and traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishinaabe and the Huron-Wendat, who are the original owners and custodians of the land on which we stand."

    2) "Settlers" -- white "old stock" European colonizers who raped the land and people and stole it. Trudeau in 2015 said he wants to rid Canada of all trace of white European Christian Settlers because of shame -- I in my 60s am now no longer "Canadian" but am now a 4th generation "Settler". I had a muslim cab driver 10 years scream in my face that unless I was a native Indian I came to Canada on a boat like him so I was no better than he. I have not taken a taxi since!

    3) Newcomers: anyone in a veil, with a koran, black or brown and screaming hate for Western whites are the "Newcomer" pure and real Canadians unsullied by white Settler poison.

    I tried to get into the US for decades but it is really hard to live in the USA if you're not a fake refugee because you must either have a full time job offer or must invest $1 million -- neither ever worked for me so with tears I bid retirement in Florida goodbye and am stuck till the grave here with the SAPS!

    Oh and in socialized medicine Canada an elderly relative has to be put into long term care home and the family just learned they have to pay for it! Monthly "Co-pay" it's called on top of the mass tax rates which is not publicized but families only learn this when it happens to them! This is "socialized medicine" where you pay for Trudeau's champagne socialist limo elites to fly to UN conferences and brag about all their untrained "doctors" from "non-settler" lands who are decolonizing Canada.

    ReplyDelete
  9. They are calling the government SYSTEM a nazi proposal not a particular person. Huge difference.

    ReplyDelete
  10. The obesity epidemic is manufactured. There is a drug called Synatan that causes rapid weight loss. https://disqus.com/home/discussion/channel-health/there_is_an_easy_way_to_lose_weight_synatan/

    Manufactured obesity is the tool that the government plans to use to force everyone to comply with its physical and political health guidelines.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Although I adore your writing and agree with 99pc of your politics, having studied medicine for a short time in the USA and regularly attending meetings there as well as working in three socialised medical systems, I can only tell you that you are wrong to suggest better outcomes of health in the USA. Life expectancy in the USA has stalled well below that of most other Western countries and at a much higher cost per person. The rich will get good health care wherever they are but the USA system fails the majority, not just the poor but middle income workers whom your article is designed to scare. For those with open minds I suggest using Google for some hard facts. Mortality figures are difficult to gerrymander.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous2/9/19

    Wow -- 3 (three) comments in one thread by the Trump Hater General. Talk about psychiatric issues! This commenter is so obsessed with Trump hate that he or she must be an Antifa stealth agent sent here to try to bore readers to death. Good thing he or she uses the same user name because now I know which comments to ignore. Another crazy boring yammer hammer! (ps I hate Trump the man and have since the 80s when he tried to turn NYC into a nouveau riche bling mess -- but, left, right or center, sir or madame, you need professional help!)

    ReplyDelete
  13. life expectancy would look very different in America if we weren't taking in a million plus third world immigrants a year

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous3/9/19

    "For those with open minds I suggest using Google for some hard facts."

    "Open minds"? Google?!? Propaganda central? Google has not linked to "facts" hard or otherwise for years because of their partisan closed minds.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Anonymous4/9/19

    I believe the NHS has stopped doing cataract surgery, calling it ineffective.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

You May Also Like