Why Britain Remains a Warning of the Horrors of Government-Run Healthcare
Great Britain has new leadership.
The Labour Party rode dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party, and in particular its stewardship of the country's National Health Service, to victory in this month's elections.
Democrats in the United States may hope they can follow their left-wing brethren to victory this fall by campaigning on healthcare.
But, let's not forget, the NHS is in crisis. And it's largely because of Britain's refusal to inject market principles into the provision of healthcare.
More government involvement in healthcare is a recipe for life-threatening delays in treatment, doctor shortages, rationing, and low-quality care.
Democrats should not be looking to the British healthcare system for policy ideas.
Conditions at the NHS have been deteriorating for decades.
And in recent months, a wave of strikes by junior doctors seeking better pay and working conditions have added to the health system's woes.
The junior doctors are seeking a pay increase of 35%. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has already said that the government cannot meet that demand.
The labor unrest is one reason why Britons have struggled to secure care. Nearly 1.5 million appointments have been postponed since NHS staff began walking off the job in late 2022.
The most recent five-day walkout in late June and early July led to the cancellation of 60,000 appointments.
Last year, an average of 268 British patients died each week as a result of hospital admission delays in the nation's emergency rooms, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine.
In England, the number of patients awaiting treatment referrals rose to 7.6 million as of the end of April.
That's roughly 13% of its entire population.
There's no shortage of lamentation from British officials about the rising death tolls and growing wait lists endemic to the NHS.
Britain's new Health Secretary, the Labour Party's Wes Streeting, even made headlines this week by declaring that "From today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken."
Labour Party leaders blame the Conservative Party for mismanagement of the NHS over the past 14 years they spent in power.
The Tories mismanaged the NHS alright — by largely refusing to nudge the system toward more market-oriented reform.
They poured more money into the system, racked up historic levels of debt, and raised taxes to levels not seen since the second World War.
Britons can expect even more public spending from the Labour Party. In its election manifesto, it promised 40,000 more operations, scans, and appointments per week in England.
That adds up to 2 million more per year.
It remains to be seen how Labour will do it.
They say they'll amp up weekend services and turn to the private sector — and pay for it by taxing Britons on money they earn outside the country.
The reference to the private sector is encouraging.
Streeting has tapped Alan Milburn, who increased private involvement in the NHS during his tenure as Health Secretary under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, to help implement his vision.
As the NHS has faltered, more and more ordinary Britons have opted for privately delivered care.
A survey conducted in March 2023 found that one in eight Britons had used private health care in the previous 12 months.
All of this tumult in Britain should give Americans pause the next time leftists like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., celebrate the virtues of government-dominated health care.
Just last year, Sanders implored Britons: "Do not look at the American model. Please do not. Build on what you have, improve what you have."
Britain has tried that for decades, with only worsening results.
One can only hope that some of the privatization measures mentioned by the Labour Party following their victory will be implemented to alleviate the disastrous problems the NHS has imposed upon patients.
American observers take note: Socialized medicine is no dream. It's a nightmare — and one from which Britain has been unable to awake.
Sally C. Pipes is president, CEO, and the Thomas W. Smith fellow in healthcare policy at the Pacific Research Institute. Her latest book is "False Premise, False Promise: The Disastrous Reality of Medicare for All," (Encounter Books 2020). Follow her on Twitter @sallypipes. Read Sally Pipes' Reports — More Here.