Government Run Healthcare

According to Thomas DiLorenzo's post in the Ludwig von Mises Institute blog the more money we have spent on government-run healthcare in the past, the less healthcare we have gotten in return. He mentions that since there are no profits, there is no rewarding system that penalizes for bad performance and encourages good performance. Thomas notes that the federal government is actually doing the opposite, giving higher budgets to those hospitals that are failing in performance and reducing budgets for those that are performing well. Here are some examples Thomas including in his post from a NY Times article entitled "Full Hospitals Make Canadians Wait and Look South"

* A 58-year-old grandmother awaited open-heart surgery in a Montreal hospital hallway with 66 other patients as electric doors opened and closed all night long, bringing in drafts from sub-zero weather. She was on a five-year waiting list for her heart surgery.

* In Toronto, 23 of the city's 25 hospitals turned away ambulances in a single day because of a shortage of doctors.

* In Vancouver, ambulances have been "stacked up" for hours while heart attack victims wait in them before being properly taken care of.

* At least 1,000 Canadian doctors and many thousands of Canadian nurses have migrated to the United States to avoid price controls on their salaries.

What's your take on socialized healthcare?