Many, if not most, Americans have some sort of experience with our nation’s mostly private health care system. Yet they still fall prey to the scare tactic that nothing — but nothing — could be worse than a government takeover of the system. How things could be worse than they are now, I cannot imagine.
In the last two months, I have spent many hours accompanying a loved one to hospital emergency rooms — all of them privately operated. The rap on what is sometimes called socialized medicine is that if the government ran the system, the wait would be interminable. Well, I am here to tell you that even when the government does not run the system, the wait can be interminable.
And uncomfortable. In one hospital there was not enough space in the emergency room to accommodate all those seeking treatment. My friend got moved from a bed — where she was relatively comfortable — to a wheelchair in the hallway. There she sat, in agony, for about six hours. Something similar happened at another emergency room, although this time she was given a cot. The wait, though, was just as long.
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