SOCIALIZED MEDICINE < HUMANITY

I met someone recently who told me that while in Great Britain, her husband had a heart attack.  He was sent to the emergency room of a local hospital, and she was eventually summoned.  He sat in the hall of that hospital for three days straight with only minimal assistance.  When his wife arrived, she was livid.  How was it that a man who had experienced a heart attack was still sitting in a hallway waiting for a room?  The hospital had a 72 hour waiting period for heart patients.  She said that if they MADE IT through the 72 hours, then they got a bed.

Now is this real, or puffery?  In these heated political times, who can say?  But there is no doubt SOME kernel of truth in it.  And even a tiny kernel is enough for me to say that I don't want government-run health care.  In my short blah blah years on this earth, I cannot think of one thing the government ran well.  Or efficiently.  I am not willing to put my health, my heart, my children's health on the line to appease some political group.  I believe the government must partner with not for profits to provide more thorough and better quality care.  I believe tax incentives to donate money and time must be generous, so as to inspire the humanity in each of us to be generous.

But no one can dictate generosity.  You cannot legislate humanity.  It is innate in all of us, and must be shared freely.  Government needs to inspire at best, and stop making us to PERSPIRE.