An excruciating irony of Obamacare is that its architects
modeled many of its features after the UK’s National Health Service
(NHS). The NHS is a classic system of socialized medicine, and a
monumental failure by any objective standard. Yet many of its
features were enthusiastically built into the “Affordable Care
Act.” The most obvious example is Obamacare’s rationing committee,
the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which was
consciously made in the image of Great Britain’s National Institute
for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).
And lest you think I exaggerate the failures of the NHS, you can
verify my characterization by reading or watching the countless
news stories and documentaries that reveal a standard of care that
is nothing short of scandalous. Routine neglect of elderly
patients, cancer patients writhing in agony because their pain
medications were not administered, clinicians eating patient food
while patients starve, nurses ignoring patients desperate to use
the toilet—all are commonplace. Indeed, neglect at one NHS hospital
caused no fewer than 1,200 deaths.
It hardly needs to be said that ordinary Britons and a variety
of patient advocacy groups are worried that such episodes will
continue if drastic changes are not made at the NHS. And,
ironically, the most successful of the “drastic” experiments put in
place is that much-hated bête noire of progressives and Obamacare
supporters everywhere: privatization. The Mail Online
reports that Hinchingbrooke Hospital, “The first NHS trust to
be operated entirely by a private company has recorded one of the
highest levels of patient satisfaction in the country.”
In other words, the Brits were so desperate to fix their
crumbling health care system, they experimented with the private
market and it is outperforming government-run health care without
breaking a sweat. Hinchingbrooke was, like so many hospitals in the
UK, about to go under when a private company called Circle Holdings
was awarded a 10-year contract to run it. This is the first time
such a company has been given control of an NHS hospital and the
results will not come as a surprise to anyone who understands free
enterprise.
As the Mail Online goes on to report, “The company
running the trust has slashed losses at the hospital by 60 per cent
and will soon begin to pay… debts built up over years of
mismanagement.” Though will be no surprise to free market
advocates, it has been a real eye-opener to the NHS. Privatization
isn’t the dirty word it once was in the much-maligned health
system: “The takeover deal … is seen as a blueprint for the future
of many NHS trusts. The George Eliot Hospital in Warwickshire is
already considering adopting the model.”
It will also come as no surprise to those who believe the market
provides the most efficient health care delivery model that, in
addition to dramatically improving the financial prospects,
privatization has improved patient satisfaction. Before
Hinchingbrooke was taken over by Circle Holdings, patients had a
very low opinion of the hospital and the care it provided. Now,
this perception is dramatically improved: “Patient satisfaction has
risen to 85 per cent, placing Hinchingbrooke in the top six of the
East of England’s 46 hospitals.”
Not everyone is happy with the changes privatization has
wrought, however. The people who work at the hospital are
apparently
unenthusiastic about the necessity of putting the wellbeing of
the patients first: “Staff satisfaction at Hinchingbrooke Hospital
has fallen since Circle took over, the latest NHS Staff Survey has
shown.” Presumably, the hospital staff would like to continue
ignoring the needs of the patients: eating their food, taking their
medications and allowing them to die because it’s just too much
work to do their jobs.
But the socialized model just doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter
that NHS staff are disgruntled or that the erstwhile administrator
of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) was
“romantic about the National Health Service.”Nor does it matter
that all of the architects of Obamacare hold similarly romantic
views about government-run health care. The NHS, as we know it,
came into being shortly after World War II. They have had well over
60 years to prove that socialized medicine works, and they have
shown precisely the opposite.
Yet, in less than two years, a private firm has taken a
government-run hospital on the verge of bankruptcy and turned it
around: Hinchingbrooke has gone from being one of the worst
hospitals in the NHS to one of the best. It is infinitely better
off financially and the patients give it high satisfaction marks
instead of living in fear that they might get sick and be admitted
there. Moreover, the hospital is meeting benchmarks on waiting
times that most NHS hospitals can only dream of reaching and
patients — particularly those with cancer — are getting better
care.
Meanwhile, we in the United States are dismantling the remaining
free market features of our medical delivery system and replacing
them with the very bureaucratic trappings that Circle Holdings
removed in order to save Hinchingbrooke. We are implementing
Obamacare when the UK has shown that government-run health care
does not work and is beginning to move away from it. What is wrong
with this picture?
Photo: UPI
