More evidence

That allowing the government to meddle at all with Health Care will get you killed.

Or your baby. This time, it's in Japan.

Japan's health minister has pledged to address the shortage of doctors in the country after a woman in labour was turned away by eight hospitals.

A ninth hospital refused to admit her even after she miscarried in an ambulance and her baby died.

The woman, who was in the sixth month of her pregnancy, lived just three minutes away from a hospital. But she was forced to travel 70km (45 miles) by ambulance looking for a facility that would admit her.

Captain Ed comments:

It's not the first time this has happened. Last year, a pregnant woman died under similar circumstances, only in that case twenty hospitals refused to admit her. None of them had bed space available, and Japan has a nationwide shortage of physicians, particularly in specialties such as obstetrics.

Why the shortage? Specialization costs more money, and in the Japanese system, the compensation does not make it worthwhile. Overall, compensation and malpractice costs have driven people away from studying to be physicians and surgeons. This is similar to the issues that Britain has had in the transplant specialties, first reported three years ago. Viable organ donations went to waste because the UK doesn't have enough transplant surgeons.

Japan has a somewhat different system than Britain or Canada. It allows for private insurers and facilities, but the government controls the market. It regulates prices, compensation, and the manner in which insurance operates. The effect is similar to that seen in other national health-care systems, which is that health care gets rationed through a mechanism other than patient choice.

Folks, in every country it's been put into practice, government health care has resulted in more government and less health care. There is absolutely no reason to get the idiots, morons and members of Congress (but I repeat myself) involved with YOUR health care.

The government has screwed up way too many things recently. Do you really think it would do a good job with YOUR health care? I sure as hell don't.