If you have not read about it, there is a heartbreaking story out of Britain concerning the fate of a months-old baby named Charlie Gard. He is afflicted with a debilitating illness which the doctors say is fatal. His parents are not willing to give up and have received an offer of free treatment from a US hospital which has doctors ready to try an alternative approach. The family has received millions in donations to cover the expenses. Yet the hospital refuses to release Charlie to his parents so they can bring him to the US. Worse yet, three UK courts have decided in the doctors' favor as well as the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg France. (That's a story in itself.)
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/07/06/charlie-gard-may-leaves-door-open-for-treatment-abroad-as-us-hospital-offers-to-take-him-for-free.html
Here is an article in The Guardian in which the writer supports the decisions of the doctors and the courts and asks who the child actually belongs to.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/06/charlie-gard-heartbreaking-society-cant-shun-experts
To the above writer, I would answer that in the case of the UK, it seems the child belongs not to the parents, not to itself, but to the State. That is the result of socialized medicine in the UK. Remember all the talk about death panels? Here are your death panels. And this "expert" on US health care even has to attack President Trump for having a heart and offering to help by saying he is trying to "demolish publicly funded health care".
This is another example of a Europe that has lost its collective soul. Not only have Europeans had their rights of free speech and right to safety stripped away from them by their globalist governments, they now witness a desperate family having not only three UK courts rule against them and tell them they cannot remove their child from the hospital that wants to remove life support over their objections, but they have to have some European court in France tell them the same thing. Yes, folks, the final word is decided not in the UK but in France. And that decision is that death is what is in Charlie's best interest.
And you wonder why the Brits voted for Brexit?
I'm also not buying the argument about this child being in pain. The photos and the statements of parents refute that.
This is not what I want the US to become; a country where you can't remove your child from a hospital to seek treatment elsewhere, where you have the courts, the foreign secretary, and the prime minister aligned against you to say nothing of some court in France.
Britain makes me sick.
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Yes, this is being handled very badly. I might add though, that all the Republicans who oppose health care reform likewise make me sick. When there is a proposal to expand coverage to millions who have no coverage, they carp about death panels. When they have power to enact their own reforms and produce something "much better" the turn out to BE a death panel.
Medical care delivery IS socialized, whether in a free market capitalist framework, an oligarchic capitalist framework, or a social-democratic framework. Medical care is complex, highly technological, expensive, and distant bureaucrats, whether working for United Health Care, Blue Cross, or the British National Health Service, are making decisions remotely about people's lives every day.
Essentially, after leading the charge in 1993 against Hillary Clinton's badly flawed health care proposal, major private insurance companies and medical care provider conglomerates have brought us exactly what they warned against, courtesy of the private sector.
Publicly funded or single-payer health insurance should provide a floor, not a straight jacket. The unavoidable caveat is, if its free, or mostly free, or free above a certain deductible or copay, someone, somewhere along the line, must have the responsibility to say, no, we will not pay for this, the likely results are not worth it. Any conservative of the slightest integrity would insist on that as a matter of fiscal prudence.
Charlie Gard probably is a lost cause. I don't object to the NHS restricting treatment to some sort of palliative care. If the parents have an option, and seek to pursue it, by all means they should be free to do so.
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