National Health Care Gone Wrong

In the movie Sicko, nationalized health care seems like it would be great; it's glorified as being the perfect way to solve all of the health care problems.  In reality, national health care isn't everything that it's cracked up to be.  There are two examples from two different articles that I found on the internet that show how wrong nationalized health care is.  The first example has to do with the death of actress/Broadway star Natasha Richardson last month; she was at a ski resort in Quebec, Canada, when she fell and hit her head.  Being as this type of injury can be life-threatening, time was of the essence to get her help.  In the end, it took four hours to get special attention to her injury, and by that time, it was too late.  Because of Canada's nationalized health care, the time it took to respond to her was delayed.  (www.ottawacitizen.com/Star+death+fuels+health+care+debate/1469447/story.html)   Countries with nationalized health care have very long waiting lists and make health care decisions based on how they feel about the condition and treatment.  An example of this was in Britain where the doctors sometimes don't prescribe treatments because they don't think that it is worth it.  For example, older patients are denied treatment because they don't have long to live.  France and Switzerland both have national health care, and their money issues aren't very good.  France has the third highest health care in the world and Switzerland has had to cut back.  They have had to close facilities, reduce medical reimbursement, and they restrict access to surgery.  National health care isn't everything that it's made out to be.  Everything isn't great and cheery with national health care; there are many downsides to it. 

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090406/OPINION01/904060313/1008/OPINION01/Don+t+let+Europe+s+health+failure+drag+U.S.+down