From the Ayn Rand Institute:

[They beat me to the punch on this letter on Dan Rather, so I'll get this one out now, while they still allow it.]

Dear Editor:

That Bill Clinton could get the emergency heart care his survival
required within 3 days underscores a life-and-death difference between
medicine under capitalism and under socialism.

Under the system of socialized medicine in Canada and Europe, people
die because waiting lists to see doctors are too long to permit them
to receive cardiac care in time to save their lives. In Canada,
for example, a patient typically must wait 24 days for an appointment
with a cardiologist--and 15 additional days for the type of emergency
bypass surgery that saved Bill Clinton's life. Similarly, a
Swedish government survey showed that Swedes can be forced to wait as
long as 11 months for a diagnostic heart X-ray and up to 8 months for
essential heart surgery. The upshot, according to one research
cardiologist, is that at least 1,000 Swedes die each year for lack of
heart treatment.

The moral belief in the right to health care beyond what an individual
can afford--health care at other people's expense--leads inevitably to
demand for unnecessary or superficial care that clogs doctors' offices, overfills hospitals and tasks the health care system beyond its capacities. The predictable result is the endless waiting lists of socialized medicine.

The choice facing Americans is stark: the rights-respecting free
market of capitalism, where goods and services are produced in
abundance, including health care--or the chronic disasters of
socialism, where thousands die because of continuous shortages.

Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Ayn Rand Institute

2121 Alton Parkway #250, Irvine CA, 92606
(949)222-6550 ext. 226