Britain's Sacred Cow

The British health system is facing changes:

Prime Minister David Cameron, the Tory MP who heads a coalition government in England, is apparently not a Moore fan: He is working to partially privatize the NHS, beginning a massive outsourcing of medical services to private health care providers throughout the U.K.

Britain’s media, in particular the Washington Post–Huffington Post hybrid The Guardian, is publishing near-panic-attacks alerts daily about the conservative plan, which comes as the British government scales back on entitlement spending, hoping to avoid a Greek-style financial meltdown.

But in the United States, left-wing enthusiasts of socialized medicine don’t seem bothered at the loss of a role model. Many won’t even acknowledge it.

“I handle media and public relations for the Catholic Health Association,” Fred Caesar told The Daily Caller. “We will pass on commenting.” Caesar is special assistant to the president of the CHA, a vocal advocate of President Obama’s health care overhaul.
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Sally Pipes, an American health policy expert who leads the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco, told TheDC that President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will likely ignore any changes in U.K. health policy. Their allies in the U.S. media and public policy establishment, she said, would follow suit.

“They are ideologues,” Pipes said. “They don’t care whether the system really works or not. They have an ideological goal in mind.”

And, as such, they'll continue to defend it-even long after it dies.