Ignoring Charlie Gard - Senators Vote for Socialized Medicine

Whether it was the revenge of a bitter and twisted John McCain or the treachery of his colleagues in the Senate is of no consequence now. Despite acknowledging that Obamacare is a disaster for the American people they voted for it to remain the law of the land.

Their health and wellbeing doesn’t even register on the political radar when it comes to a self-serving political class who are immune from the disasters they impose on others.

After spending seven long years making solemn promises to repeal and replace Obamacare they reneged on those promises knowing that it would fail, as it was designed to do, thus paving the way for a government run single payer system, better known as socialized medicine.

It’s fair to assume that these Senators and Representatives knew the consequences of their action and therefore find the nationalization of the healthcare sector acceptable.

For the multitude of socialist/communists/liberals that infest the Congress this support for socialized medicine is a godsend which moves them closer to a core tenet of their perverted ideology.

The real treachery lies with those legislators who profess to be the champions of individual liberty and free enterprise but voted to inflict a healthcare nightmare on their constituents.

The American people need only to look as far as the National Health Service (NHS) in Great Britain to understand the disaster that awaits them.

This 70-year old bureaucratic monolith has been given divine status, the questioning of which is considered blasphemy of the very highest order. Even minor questioning of its inefficiencies and failures is taboo and leaves the brave dissenter open to vilification and smear.

As is the case with any entrenched long standing bureaucracy they take on a life of their own and become a law unto themselves. The health and wellbeing of the nation come a long way down the list of priorities behind self-preservation, political correctness and an endless demand for ever increasing sums of taxpayer money.

The Sad Case of Charlie Gard:

These bureaucrats are without emotion or empathy and intoxicated with their own power. This includes the power of life and death as the recent heart breaking case of baby Charlie Gard testified.

Baby Charlie suffered brain damage because of a condition called encephalomyopathic mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS). Doctors said Charlie cannot breathe without a ventilator and should be taken off life support and allowed to die. The Courts agreed that baby Charlie must be put to death.

Charlie’s parents however fought to keep Charlie alive so that they could take him to the USA for an experimental treatment that has previously helped a child suffering the same condition with some success.

Despite the fact that an American doctor has offered to treat Charlie and his devoted parents raised private money to finance the treatment, the bureaucrats refused to release him and insisted Charlie’s death sentence must be carried out.

The Vatican and President Trump intervened on Charlie’s behalf but the bureaucracy steadfastly refused. These inhuman creatures even refused a final request that Charlie be allowed home to die surrounded by loved ones.

Read the harrowing story of Charlie Gard here

The following are some brief points the American public and their legislators need to be aware of before they adopt government run healthcare:

There are no Choices or Treatment Options:

The utter contempt of the bureaucrats that run Great Britain’s socialist healthcare system for the parents of sick children knows no bounds and the case of Ashya King demonstrates the extraordinary lengths they will go to in order to exercise their power over the people they are meant to serve.

Briefly, the parents of 5-year old Ashya King had the temerity to disagree with medical staff over treatment for their young son’s brain tumor. They preferred proton therapy as they considered it less harmful than conventional radiotherapy. The NHS didn’t provide proton therapy in Great Britain but had funded treatment abroad in the past.

In this case they did not support Ashya being moved and in response the parents removed him from the hospital and took him to abroad for treatment.

The NHS bureaucrats instigated an international manhunt which resulted in the parents being arrested and banged up in a Spanish jail while the boy was sent to a local hospital for treatment.

In this case the High Court agreed with the parents and allowed Ashya to receive proton treatment in Prague, Czech Republic and he is now cancer free.

Read the Ashya King scandal here

The NHS Bureaucracy:

Due to its complexity, calculating the number of employees is not an exact science, however the NHS is a labyrinthine behemoth employing an estimated 1.8 million people of which 46-48% are not clinically trained. They fit somewhere in the following bureaucratic jungle. Some of these boxes are bureaucratic jungles in their own right.

The Untouchable Bureaucrats:

Healthcare provision for the British people is a low priority for so-called healthcare professionals who use the bureaucracy they created to loot the NHS for their own enrichment.

Unlike the private sector it is virtually impossible to offload surplus staff or dismiss anyone for non-performance or any other reason short of murder.

Four thousand staff rehired after being made redundant.

NHS boss pockets $186,000 by retiring for 24 hours to cash in her pension.

More than 600 super bureaucrats are on six-figure salaries plus expenses.

Continuous Shortage of Money and Political Correctness:

Since its inception the NHS bureaucrats and agenda driven politicians have been lobbying the government for evermore injections of taxpayer money. No matter how much is poured in it is never enough. Improving efficiency and cost effectiveness by reforming the archaic processes and procedures is beyond the imagination and capabilities of politicians and the entrenched career bureaucrats.

Despite this permanent shortage of cash, there is always plenty available to finance vanity projects and the imposition of politically correct imbecilities.

With a complete disregard for the taxpayer every hospital was ordered to change its logo by NHS ‘identity managers'. I’m sure the public will be interested to know that there exists 'NHS identity teams' using up precious resources that could be used for proton therapy for children as needed by the aforementioned Ashya King. (Read about this waste of resources here)

The following is an advertisement for a part-time for Assistant Director of Equality and Diversity at Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust. Salary $56,000 - $69,000.This is more than is earned by a Captain in the British army, and about the same as a Major. If this is what a part-time assistant earns the person in charge must be making a fortune.

Typical of all taxpayer funded, government run enterprises, political correctness is more important than the service they provide or the needs of the patient. The job description for the above mentioned vacancy is a howler and says it all about the PC culture that infests the NHS.

“You’ll look to continually develop programmes that deliver our Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Strategy 2015 – 2019, which sets out a powerful vision: valuing the voices of diverse people to be the best we can. It’s a chance to lead and champion the development and delivery of all aspects of our equality and diversity work. This senior role will see you deputising for the Associate Director of Inclusion and Community, including working with external partners to advocate for the areas of Access, Community Partnership and Equality. You’ll also establish strong monitoring arrangements so we can track our progress.”

(Read about this scandalous waste here)

In conclusion: The inefficiency, waste, fraud and abuse is endemic with little or no appetite by the government or the NHS bureaucrats to reform or modernize the system in the interests of the long suffering public.

The American public should learn from their British cousins as their legislators vote to put an army of impersonal, self-obsessed, all powerful bureaucrats between them and their doctor.

This 1.8 million strong out-of-control, money hungry behemoth caters for a population of only 65 million, one can only wonder what a similar system would be for their population of 323 million.

Follow the links for further reading on the subject:

Baby Charlie shows the system for the monster it really is.

If we were British our son would be dead.


Addendum including a case history:

The Cases of Warren Hench and Charlie Gard

Warren was a close friend of many years and I was involved with him throughout his illness and eventual demise. He was in total control of his healthcare and treatments at all times right up until his passing.

Warren was a 62-year old businessman and former US marine noticed pink in his urine but ignored it for a year before seeking treatment. He was diagnosed with Stage IV prostate cancer and advised by his doctors to seek hospice care and do anything on his bucket list while he was still physically able.

He was having none of it; instead he did his own research and found a sympathetic doctor who put him touch with a medic involved in prostate cancer research. He volunteered for experimental treatment and lived a quality life for three years before his cancer started to return.

This doctor knew of others in the prostate cancer research field that was developing treatments which were still in the experimental stage. He volunteered and enjoyed another two years of quality life, including being fully engaged in his three businesses, before again his cancer started to return.

Once again he was advised to seek hospice care and prepare for the end.

He refused and volunteered three further times for experimental treatments since his cancer kept returning as the various treatments became ineffective over time.

He finally succumbed after 10 years of quality life with family and friends. It also allowed him time to arrange for his businesses to continue after his passing.

The conclusions that can be drawn from this case:

He should have seen his doctor immediately he noticed a problem with his urine. The time delay allowed his condition to deteriorate.

If he had he left it to the medical experts he would have died in a hospice 10 years too soon.

If he had he been a baby or senile the medical experts would have condemned him to death earlier than need be.

There was no guarantee that the experimental treatments would work but they did in this case.

He made the decision to try experimental treatment not the medics, bureaucrats or judges.

He died at home surrounded by his family and friends.

The contrast with Charlie Gard.

The seven month delay arguing in the courts allowed his condition to deteriorate past the point where he could be helped. If he had underwent the experimental treatment sooner it could have worked in his favor.

The medical experts don’t always get it right and his parents were entitled to explore every option for their son.

The experimental treatment on offer had helped other children with a similar condition in the past.

Warren himself made the all decisions regarding his own treatment and in many cases going against the advice of the so-called medical experts.

As he requested Warren died at home surrounded by his family and friends unlike Charlie whose parents were refused permission to take him home.

As debate over Charlie continues it is my opinion, and that of many others, that treatment options, especially life and death decisions, should be taken by the patient and in the case of babies and young children by the parents.

Warren’s name has been changed to spare his family any distress

Death By Numbers - National Health Service And Obamacare Repeal

As the American Congress makes a dog's dinner out of repealing and replacing Obamacare, the lies and hysteria coming from the Democrats and their bought-and-paid-for mainstream media is reaching fever pitch.

Anyone who pays attention to Democratic Party tactics and those of their socialist bedfellows will have predicted that they would conjure up visions of heartless Republicans willfully visiting death and suffering on the heads of the poor solely to give a tax cut to the rich.

In order to counter the growing cynicism of the long suffering American public who are growing increasingly weary of the MSM hysteria and their lack of evidence in Trump/Russia nonsense, actual figures of the death toll are now being touted.

The death toll started off with thousands of deaths per year and increased to tens of thousands as the skeptical public refused to be enthused. This further increased to 24,000, then 36,000 and currently stands at 43,000.

Wealthy Presidential candidate and Socialist In Name Only (SINO), Bernie Sanders, has increased the rhetoric and hysteria using the 36,000 figure he gleaned from a left leaning website. (See here)

Incidentally, as a measure of his phony attachment to socialism Bernie steadfastly refuses to answer any questions on the disastrous failure of the socialist policies he advocates in Venezuela and more pointedly like all wealthy socialists he refuses to redistribute his own considerable wealth to the poor he champions.

The old saying that things are always bigger and better in America does not apply to healthcare induced death, if one professor’s figures are correct. The British National Health Service is way ahead.

Bernie Sander’s forecast of 36,000 deaths is a drop in the bucket compared to the involuntary slaughter in the NHS. Professor Patrick Pullicino claims that 135,000 elderly people die each year by use of the Liverpool Care Pathway which removes medical support from the elderly to speed their passing. 

This does not include the 30,000 or so elderly people who die of hypothermia each winter because they can’t afford their deliberately inflated heating bills.

The Liverpool Care Pathway started as a compassionate means of relief from suffering agreed with the families which has morphed into a program of euthanasia. (Read the article here)

In event of the professors’ theory being incorrect, the involuntary death toll in the NHS is considerable with 1,200 involuntary deaths in the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust alone. (See here)

The American people should be aware  that any government run department or organization, healthcare provision included, always ends with a bloated self-perpetuating bureaucracy stuffed to the gunwales with self-serving career bureaucrats whose only purpose in life is to agitate for ever increasing sums of taxpayer money.

They only need to look as far as their Medicare and Medicaid systems not to mention the failings of the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA)

It is my humble opinion that Obamacare was implemented as a stepping stone to a single payer system and was designed to fail in order to bring it about.

   

The fact that Obamacare has been an unmitigated disaster for the American people has been studiously ignored by the charlatans on the left and the MSM.

People need to understand that socialized medicine or a single payer system is the goal of all socialists not because it delivers universal healthcare free at the point of need but for removing the responsibility for their personal health and wellbeing from individuals and families and passing it to the state bureaucrats.

As Ronald Reagan warned back in the 1960’s, if the government controls your healthcare they end up controlling all aspects of your life.

In the case of Obamacare it also gave control over one-sixth of the giant American economy to politicians and government bureaucrats.

Lying of course is now deemed as an acceptable practice in acquisition of political power and there was no bigger exponent than President Obama. One of the biggest lies ever perpetrated by an American President, or any politician for that matter, was the notorious whopper he delivered in support of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

He knew he was lying through his teeth when he spoke the now infamous words - “if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, period. If you like your healthcare plan you can keep your healthcare plan, period.”.

He followed this up with other lies including the falsehood that healthcare cost will decrease by an average of $1,200 for a family of four per year.

In reality, as with other government run programs the opposite was true, premiums and deductibles sky rocketed putting healthcare cover out of reach for millions or it provided cover they couldn’t afford to use.

The American people would be wise to ignore the lies and deceit of self-serving swamp dwellers in Washington DC and accept that Obamacare needs to be repealed in its entirety and replaced with a free market system that leaves individuals and families to decide their own healthcare needs and keeps the dirty hands of politicians as far away as possible.

Previous articles on the failed NHS:


NHS Kills MP's Husband - She Must Accept Responsibility For His Demise.


Obamacare Is Dead - Failed NHS Is In A Coma On Life Support



Healthcare Scavengers Feed On The Corpse Of A Much Loved Friend

Healthcare Scavengers Feed On The Corpse Of A Much Loved Friend

While the debate rages in the USA about replacing Obamacare, the American people should be made aware that like the socialized health care system in Great Britain Speaker Paul Ryan's plan will expand government dependency by creating more entitlements and bureaucrats will gorge themselves on the endless supply of taxpayers money.

It has become an eternal truth that wherever there is an unlimited supply of taxpayers money scavengers and parasites appear from nowhere to exploit the largess and stuff their pockets and their bank accounts with ill-gotten gains.

Like all organizations that are financed by the long suffering taxpayer these career bureaucrats give themselves fancy titles to deflect attention away from what they really are; namely parasites and scavengers that have made a career out of conning the public about their expertise then growing fat on looted money.

Hence in Great Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) there are hundreds of thousands of self-styled healthcare professionals, healthcare consultants, healthcare experts who’s only discernible skill is perpetuating themselves by creating ever more complex rules and regulations then expanding the existing bureaucracy to police them. (One horrendous fat cat looting scandal here)

Like an amoeba they have the ability to multiply themselves by dividing and sub-dividing without any apparent stimuli from outside.

Recent figures show that some five hundred and fifty-six thousand (556,000) non-clinical staff are currently employed by the NHS which does not include clinically trained staff who no longer serve on the front line having become full-time bureaucrats.

Also this figure does not include sub-contractors and agency staff that consume resources but don’t appear in the headcount numbers.

It is accepted that a certain amount of non-clinical, administrative staff are essential to the smooth running of any organization but the NHS has gone far beyond what is required and become a bureaucratic behemoth that devours taxpayers money in exchange for ever increasing amounts of rules and regulations.

Complexity is a black hole for money and the friend of the bureaucrat; the following is the labyrinth that’s stands between sick patients and the healthcare they pay for through their taxes.

If that’s not complex enough inside each of the boxes above lurks another equally complex and expensive bureaucracy that puts further distance between the sick and the treatment they need . In the case of serious illness and diseases it stands between life and death.

A local NHS Trusts for example looks like this:

These self same healthcare professionals, consultants and experts speak their own alien language which is unintelligible to all but those initiated into the esoteric world of the bureaucrat. One has to wonder if this language hasn't been deliberately designed to confuse simple minded politicians into handing over evermore sums of taxpayer money without question.

Hence, in the language of the bureaucrat, funding the NHS has become:

"Mapping the Health & Social Care Procurement Landscape by Maturity, Impact and Operating Model" and it looks like this.

  

These self-styled professionals, consultants and experts don’t come cheap with six figure salaries, gold-plated pensions and generous expense accounts awarded without any apparent requirement to deliver results. Unlike private industry there are no sanctions in event of non-delivery or, in the case of the Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust, mass deaths caused by poor healthcare delivery.

(Mid-Staffs scandal. Only one unnamed manager sacked despite 1,200 deaths. See here)

Anyone who has had the misfortune to work with a bloated out of control bureaucracy will know that they are not only expensive, hopelessly inefficient, time consuming and an obstacle to performance but unaccountable as well. Faceless bureaucrats notorious for their fancy job titles are in charge of everything but responsible for nothing when their inefficiency and incompetence is exposed by poor results and scandal.

( Nine out of ten hospitals unsafe. Report here)

Unscrupulous politicians never miss an opportunity to pursue their agenda hence the NHS has been politicized to the point where imposing political correctness has taken precedence over patient care.

While demand has increased due to a surge in population, numbers of frontline clinical staff has not kept pace exponentially. This has caused waiting lists to become even longer than they already are resulting in the deterioration of the patients condition.

This scandalous inefficiency has spawned a spin off industry which is nothing more than a scam which fleeces patients who are desperate for treatment. Faced with a delay of months or longer for treatment, the doctor or consultant concerned will offer to treat the patient privately without delay for a payment, often in cash in hand.

Frightened patients desperate for treatment have been known to sell the family silver or go into debt in order to get treatment they've already pay for. Doctors and consultants with waiting lists running into months can suddenly find time to treat patients privately for a wad of cash.

Known as 'going private' it makes the NHS  ethos of  healthcare free at the point of need regardless of ability to pay looking a bit sick and in need of attention itself.

This article is intended to highlight to the American people some of the pitfalls of nationalized healthcare provision and it could run into several volumes. I would urge them to read what is written so far and be absolutely sure that the replacement of Obamacare offered by Speaker Ryan is not the same inefficient, taxpayer funded gravy train that will benefit bureaucrats and agenda driven politicians at the expense of those in need of healthcare.

Further reading on NHS scandals:

Revealed: 9000 deaths per year caused by politicians worshipping at the alter of the NHS here

Greedy NHS fat cat bosses awarded millions while hospitals go broke here

Revolving door. One in 5 staff paid off by the NHS are re-hired here