Tuesday, May 04, 2004

The 'cost' of medical care

Thomas Sowell offers this anecdote:
" I saw a vivid example of what bureaucratic medical care meant back in 1959, when I had a summer job at the headquarters of the U.S. Public Health Service in Washington. Around 5 o'clock one afternoon, a man had a heart attack on the street near our office.
He was taken to the nurse's room and asked if he was a federal employee. If he was, he could be sent to the large, modern medical facility there in the Public Health Service headquarters. But he was not a government employee, so an ambulance was summoned from a local hospital.
By the time this ambulance made its way through miles of downtown Washington rush-hour traffic, the man was dead. He died waiting for a doctor, in a building full of doctors. That is what bureaucracy means."
And some people want more of this.

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