Liberals in government are desperate to manipulate the Wuhan virus for partisan gain.
For Democrats, it’s the perfect time to push for socializing the entire healthcare system.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. tweeted that this is “a great time” for “emergency” measures such as “Medicare for all” and others on the left have insisted that socialized medicine would’ve saved lives from COVID-19.
But according to the numbers, they prove that socialism is a disaster.
If anything, figures show precisely why socialized medicine can take a catastrophe such as the coronavirus pandemic and make it far, far worse.
Some of the hardest-hit nations in the world are those with socialized medicine.
Canada, often praised by the left as a model to emulate, has a higher total case-fatality ratio than the United States, according to an analysis from Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.
That same analysis also finds that France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and Belgium have higher case fatality ratios and higher rates of deaths per 100,000 people.
The United Kingdom has double the deaths per 100,000 … while Belgium is watching people fall to this deadly disease at nearly triple the rate in the United States.
Another analysis, by the Council on Foreign Relations, finds Britain spends far less on healthcare overall than other nations, including the United States – but they’re paying for those lower costs in other ways.
Specifically, they’re unable to get care exactly when they need it –– which would, unfortunately, include emergency situations.
“The system has faced criticism over a lack of funding and decreasing quality, particularly for primary care,” the report warns.
The circumstances are only getting worse amid the pandemic, as the U.K. now has just two acute-care hospital beds per thousand people, one of the lowest rates for industrialized nations.
Even The Washington Post was forced to admit the truth, running an editorial with the headline “Why this pandemic is an indictment of socialized medicine.”
The column by Marc A. Thiessen – a former speechwriter for then-President George W. Bush – notes that the United States has more ICU beds and more essential equipment for fighting the infection when compared to nations with socialized medicine.
“In good times, critical care is rationed under socialized medicine,” he wrote. “In a pandemic, the rationing is even more severe.”
And that could happen here, too, if liberals’ dream of “Medicare for all” ever passes. Thiessen notes the proposal would lead 40 percent cuts in payments to doctors and hospitals.
“Guess what happens when you cut payments by 40 percent,” he wrote. “You get fewer doctors and hospital beds.”
Now, as the numbers show, that’s not just a theoretical argument anymore.
You can see the real-world consequences in the coronavirus statistics around the world.
Sally C. Pipes, head of the Pacific Research Institute, warned in a Fox News column that the United States would’ve been even less prepared for a global pandemic under “Medicare for all.”
She said a 40 percent cut in payments would force hospitals into insolvency – unable to pay debts — especially the one in four rural hospitals already teetering on the brink of closure due to poor finances.
And she noted that shortages in vital equipment due to these cuts in funding wouldn’t just lead to rationing solely in times of crisis as doctors try to decide who gets limited resources and who doesn’t.
It would happen all the time.
Doctors would constantly be forced to sacrifice patients and more citizens would suffer.
“Under ‘Medicare for all,’ rationing and long waits for care would become the norm in the United States, too – not just during once-a-generation outbreaks but each and every year,” she concluded.
— Walter W. Murray is a reporter for The Horn News. He is an outspoken conservative and a survival expert, and is the author of “America’s Final Warning.”