During his commentary segment on Monday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” network senior political analyst Brit Hume explained why the various forms of government-run or government-funded health care have failed at home and abroad.
“The spreading scandal of delayed care at Veterans Administration hospitals and the unraveling efforts to cover up the problem have resulted in predictable calls for the resignation of VA secretary Eric Shinseki,” Hume said. “But the VA has been plagued with patient backlogs for long as I can remember and the problem has defied all efforts to solve it. The fact is long waits for care are common for government-run tax-payer funded health systems. Think of all the complaints you’ve read about long waits for care in all the socialized health care systems in Britain and Canada. They are what happens when the government owns and operates the hospitals and pays the doctors and nurses and finances it all out of a central budget.”
“As Michael Tanner of the CATO Institute points out, the delays are simply a form of rationing,” he continued. “This is an inconvenient truth for those who believe in full-blown socialized medicine. But it is also inconvenient to those who prefer a single-payer system where the government does not provide the care, but does pay the bills. That’s how Medicare works. It may be popular because it’s supposedly free but people who can afford it buy extra private insurance to cover its gaps. That’s also how Medicaid works. It’s free, too. But good luck finding a doctor who will treat you. The number of physicians who take Medicaid has been declining for years. The recent study of 15 major cities found that fewer than half their doctors now treat Medicaid patients.”
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