Washington Post starts to criticize UK's National Health "Service," then backs off

Following is an edited version of a piece in the Washington Post from two days ago.  The first few 'grafs look like the Post has finally come to its senses about how crappy socialism and government-run anything is, but then we see a U-turn.

Every winter in the U.K. their notorious National Health Service wails that it's on the verge of collapse.  They tell citizens who are sick to stay home and tough it out.

Hospital hallways overflow, and routine procedures get canceled due to a catastrophic event commonly known as “winter.”  Despite demanding and getting annual funding increases, nothing ever improves, so the wallahs who run the ghastly system hit the airwaves begging the public to seek other forms of treatment for “less serious” injuries and ailments. 

Instead of being critical, the British press doesn't say a critical word, because the top priority is to “protect the NHS” against criticism.

As of the end of October 6.24 million people were waiting to get treatment.  

This is the dark reality of what's cunningly called "single-payer health-care systems"--a clever way to avoid saying "government run," and you'd think it would educate the third of Americans who believe having the government run medical care ("Medicare-for-all") is a good idea.  Because it brings not only outrageously high costs, but also rationing care.

For Democrats, that means patients with serious health problems are forced to wait months or years for treatment, hoping they don’t die before then. 

Last year "junior doctors" went on strike, so the socialist Labour government gave 'em a 22 percent pay increase over two years.  Now they've gone on strike again, this time demanding another 26 percent increase.  Hmmm...

Reform is impossible because of a near-religious devotion to the NHS by immigrants, low-income citizens and layabouts.  See, once politicians create an "entitlement"--no matter how costly or inefficient--no later pol has the balls to undo it.

As I read the Post editorial I thought, wow, maybe the "elites" are starting to get it.  Maybe there's hope yet.  But then the Post pulled the U-turn:

This is why practically every developed country except the U.S. has adopted the principle of universal access to health care— yet almost no other country has adopted an NHS-style system. The pitfalls are too obvious.

Demands on the service are too great to be competently handled by the central government.

Wait...if the government guarantees "universal access" to non-emergency health care you're right back in the same fix--the only difference being that govt pay would be paying hundreds of billions directly to several health providers instead of hiring the docs and nurses directly.  The only effect of that would be to add another layer of costly bureaucracy.

So instead of the Post's editorial-board piece being a watershed moment, it's just socialized medicine disguised to look more capitalist--but still funded by taxpayers, with the inevitable result.

And to be clear, I realize taxpayers will still cover emergency treatment of the indigent, but at only a fraction of the cost of the government running everything.  Also, it would prevent one greedy union from constantly striking and forcing the wallahs to capitulate to an endless series of demands for more raises. 

Source: WaPo

https://archive.is/IPTGD#selection-309.0-441.144