government-subsidized day care, the celebration of one's sexual appetites, and whether mandatory paid vacation should be six or eight weeks? But they're agreeable only for the generation or two that they last. And, as we're about to see in demographically barren, economically ossified Europe, for good or ill it's the primal impulses that count. Europe's belief that you can smooth off the rough edges of Anglo-American capitalism and still remain wealthy has trapped it in societal structures predicated on false arithmetic whose disastrous consequences can't be postponed much longer. Unchecked, government social programs are a security threat because they weaken the ultimate line of defense: the freeborn citizen whose responsibilities are not subcontracted to the government. What then would happen if America were to follow Mr. Hutton's advice and "join the world"? Well, those "40 million Americans without health insurance" would enjoy the benefit of a new government health care system and, like their 250 million neighbors, would discover the charms of the health care "waiting list"--the one year, two years, or more Britons and others wait in pain for even routine operations; the six, twelve, eighteen months Canadians wait for an MRI scan, there being more such scanners in the city of Philadelphia America Alone
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than in the entire Great White North. They're now pioneering the ultimate expression of government health care: the ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward. In 2004, Debrah Cornthwaite gave birth to twin boys at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. That's in Alberta. Mrs. Cornthwaite had begun the big day by going to her local maternity ward at Langley Memorial Hospital. That's in British Columbia. They told her, yes, your contractions are coming every four minutes, but sorry, we don't have any beds. And, after they'd checked with the bed-availability help line "BC Bedline," they brought her the further good news that there was not a hospital anywhere in the province in which she could deliver her babies. There followed seven hours of red tape and paperwork. Then, late in the evening, she was driven to the airport and put on a chartered twin-prop to Edmonton. In the course of the flight, the contractions increased to every two and a half minutes--and most Lamaze classes don't teach timing your breathing to turbulence over the Rockies. How many Americans would want to do that on delivery day? You pack your bag and head to your local hospital in Oakland, and they say: Not to worry, we've got a bed for you in Denver.
Euro-Canadian socialized health care is, in essence, subsidized by American taxpayers: since the end of World War Two, Washington has assumed the defense costs of its allies, thereby freeing up those countries to spend their tax revenues on lavish social programs. But, if America follows the Hutton plan and "joins the world," it will reduce its defense expenditures to Euro-Canadian levels. So the next time a tsunami hits Sri Lanka or Indonesia there will be no carrier groups to divert and save lives. So more people will die, waiting the weeks and weeks it took the sleepy time gals at the United Nations to arrive. Were America to "join the world," it would have to reduce its funding of the UN and other world bodies to European levels. And it might have to scale back its domestic agencies so that they're no longer able to serve in effect as international ones. Which will be tough when some kid in some village on the other side of the world comes down with some weird illness no one's seen before and they want to FedEx the test tube to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to figure out what's going on. Indeed, even relatively advanced societies admired by the likes of Will Hutton take it as routine that the CDC is a kind of Health Ministry of last resort. When SARS leapt from China to infect Toronto's hospitals in 2003, the principal contribution of the WHO (World Health Organization) was
Page 45
than in the entire Great White North. They're now pioneering the ultimate expression of government health care: the ten-month waiting list for the maternity ward. In 2004, Debrah Cornthwaite gave birth to twin boys at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton. That's in Alberta. Mrs. Cornthwaite had begun the big day by going to her local maternity ward at Langley Memorial Hospital. That's in British Columbia. They told her, yes, your contractions are coming every four minutes, but sorry, we don't have any beds. And, after they'd checked with the bed-availability help line "BC Bedline," they brought her the further good news that there was not a hospital anywhere in the province in which she could deliver her babies. There followed seven hours of red tape and paperwork. Then, late in the evening, she was driven to the airport and put on a chartered twin-prop to Edmonton. In the course of the flight, the contractions increased to every two and a half minutes--and most Lamaze classes don't teach timing your breathing to turbulence over the Rockies. How many Americans would want to do that on delivery day? You pack your bag and head to your local hospital in Oakland, and they say: Not to worry, we've got a bed for you in Denver.
Euro-Canadian socialized health care is, in essence, subsidized by American taxpayers: since the end of World War Two, Washington has assumed the defense costs of its allies, thereby freeing up those countries to spend their tax revenues on lavish social programs. But, if America follows the Hutton plan and "joins the world," it will reduce its defense expenditures to Euro-Canadian levels. So the next time a tsunami hits Sri Lanka or Indonesia there will be no carrier groups to divert and save lives. So more people will die, waiting the weeks and weeks it took the sleepy time gals at the United Nations to arrive. Were America to "join the world," it would have to reduce its funding of the UN and other world bodies to European levels. And it might have to scale back its domestic agencies so that they're no longer able to serve in effect as international ones. Which will be tough when some kid in some village on the other side of the world comes down with some weird illness no one's seen before and they want to FedEx the test tube to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta to figure out what's going on. Indeed, even relatively advanced societies admired by the likes of Will Hutton take it as routine that the CDC is a kind of Health Ministry of last resort. When SARS leapt from China to infect Toronto's hospitals in 2003, the principal contribution of the WHO (World Health Organization) was
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