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Health Care by Computer Has Failed in the UK

By Harry Kimball, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 18, 2009 6:19 PM CDT

(Newser) – Like all liberals, President Obama likes big, controlling systems. Like British politicians, he hopes to manage health care with a nationwide supercomputer. As Britain failed, so too will the United States, Fraser Nelson and Irwin M. Stelzer write in the Weekly Standard. Not only has Britain's medical database failed after years of hard work and $7.4 billion in taxpayers' money, it manages patients' health care in horrifying ways.

Want an expensive drug to arrest macular degeneration? Until recently, Britons first had to be blind in one eye. Already paying for life-prolonging cancer drugs? British health care won't have anything to do with you. It's a rationing system that has led to an equally messy computer system that fails to replace doctors' good sense. Britain's failure contains "a lesson for the world," write Nelsona and Stelzer: "Abandon hope all ye who enter here."

[Images (2)]

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President Barack Obama. (AP Photo)

Nurses check terminals in an array of computers. (AP Photo)

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It was then, and is now, too big too succeed. Even for a supposedly homogenized medical system like Britain's NHS, there are too many variables. - Fraser Nelson and Irwin M. Stelzer,
the Weekly Standard

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COMMENTS

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Showing 3 of 29 comments

lindamae

Jul 21, 2009 7:37 AM CDT

There are @ 14 - 20 million without insurance. It'd be cheaper to pay for their policies than do what Obama wants. Right now, China owns 50 cents out of every dollar we have borrowed. Let's get rid of malpractice insurance for doctors first. Did you know that they just enacted a law that will protect the makers of vaccines from being sued if their vaccine kills you? They did it because the last vaccine killed as many as did the flu it was supposed to prevent. So they are protected. Why aren't our doctors given at least a part of that right? Read the health bills and then respond. At this time, no one knows enough to discuss the issue.

lindamae

Jul 21, 2009 7:30 AM CDT

Read the Canadian self study about their broken system of health care. It is no longer a right in Canada in order to stop the law suits from those who had been denied. They might even bring in a private insurance supplement to help stop the problems. Obama swears we can keep our own insurance but then if you read the bill, it states you won't be able to. Plus, I do believe Jan Shadowsky when she bragged that private insurance was on its way out. She was going to see it destroyed. She's a member of the American Socialist Party which is bragging that they will bring single payer to America. Also visit the Dem. Progressive Caucus to see more bragging that the insurance business is soon dead and single payer will be what we all have. Except for Congress, however, They will keep their own private insurance while we go public. I don't want that. Canadians who need care would love to get rid of what they are forced to have. Read their Report. It's on line. Then, you can discuss the issue intelligently instead of repeating the party line. Google it.

lindamae

Jul 21, 2009 7:23 AM CDT

At least you are allowed to live.

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Politics • Health • US

health care • England • public health • National Health Service • computer network • Obama administration • President Obama

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