Socialized Medicine Was the Democrats’ Goal All Along
Roseanne Milburn waited six years for a knee replacement and then developed complications and an infection that required another operation. Because there were no beds available she had to wait another week for that follow-up surgery. The delay proved catastrophic and Milburn ended up having her right leg amputated.
She lives in Canada, so at least the surgery was “free.” As the Schumer Shutdown rages over healthcare for illegal immigrants, Democrats keep blaming Republicans for perceived failures in medical care while forgetting history. Their party pushed the law Americans know as “Obamacare” — sorry, the “Affordable Care Act” — into place fifteen years ago promising it would cut insurance costs by $2,500 a year.
Instead, premiums surged and health coverage now eats up a bigger slice of many family budgets than housing and food combined. During COVID Democrats pushed extra subsidies and then voted for a sunset date on those payments, and now act shocked when the program expires. When the subsidies lapsed they screamed about a “Republican healthcare crisis.”
Don’t be fooled by the theatrics. This mess suits the people who want single payer because a strained system creates demand for big government fixes. Bernie Sanders — a longtime proponent of such garbage — said as much.
If Ms. Milburn’s story troubles you, imagine the flood of similar tragedies under a nationalized system here. Canada has about 8.2 times fewer people than the United States relative to population density challenges, and its “free” system already struggles to provide timely care.
Right now the typical wait time in the U.S. for a non-emergent knee replacement runs from two to 12 weeks, not six years, and urgent infections still receive immediate attention. Our system has real problems — price inflation, opaque provider networks, and heavy-handed regulation that often favors bureaucrats over patients. The ways in which we fix the problems is a topic for another column, but we can start by repealing the ACA in its entirety.
Socialized models bring predictable side effects: longer wait lists, fewer choices, and rationed care when budgets tighten. Democrats would also weaponize “free” healthcare politically, as they showed during COVID when they argued the unvaccinated should be denied medical care. Turning access to medicine into a political reward would be an ugly, unavoidable consequence of centralizing power.
It is, after all, all about control. And for Ms. Milburn, the price of “free” healthcare was literally a leg.
