Editorial: U.K. Vs. ObamaCare

 Posted 01/18/2011 07:01 PM ET

Medicine: As the House moves to repeal the nationalization of health care, Britain plans to take a scalpel to its National Health Service, opening it up to competition and letting doctors and patients call the shots.  It was both a stunning admission and a damning indictment of socialized medicine when British Prime Minister David Cameron in effect admitted that the holy grail of nationalized health care, the British National Health Service (NHS), was broken and in need of fixing.

In a speech outlining public-sector reforms to be introduced in a bill Wednesday, Cameron promised to get rid of "top-down, command-and-control bureaucracy and targets" and that the NHS would not be exempt from those reforms.

While critics of his plan are already saying it could lead to backdoor privatization of the NHS, Cameron stopped short of suggesting that is his aim. Founded in 1948, NHS could be called the "third rail" of British politics akin to our Social Security.  Indeed, Cameron on Monday said "a free NHS at the point of use, for everybody" was "part of Britain, part of Britishness." Once people become convinced there is such a thing as a free lunch, they become dependent on it, even if it's not free.

Still the reforms are staggering and point Britain in a different direction than we are going with ObamaCare. Cameron proposes giving control over management to family practitioners rather than bureaucrats, and allowing private companies, charities and social enterprises to bid for contracts within the public health service.  "We need modernization on both sides of the equation," he said in his speech. "Modernization to do something about the demand for public health service, and modernization to make the supply of health care more efficient, which is about opening up the system, making it more competitive, cutting out waste and bureaucracy."

ObamaCare promises exactly the opposite, increasing demand and coverage to the point of collapsing the system, taking decisions out of the hands of physicians who promise to quit in droves and putting it in the hands of a regulatory behemoth that decides who gets what care and when.

In his speech, Cameron noted he thought Britain was falling behind on health care. "In Shanghai, the average child is two years ahead of a child here," he said. "In Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria or, interestingly, Poland, you are less likely to die once admitted into hospital after a heart attack than you are in the U.K."

During an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today program, Cameron went farther, saying, "I don't think we should put up with a second-rate — with coming second-best," he said, quickly correcting himself. "We should aim to be the best." Some consider it a gaffe. We consider it the honest truth, a rare moment of candor from a politician.

Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama's choice to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, has praised the NHS, whose horror stories of rationed services and medicines with sometimes fatal effects we have documented.

Berwick says: "Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional. Britain, you chose well." Well, Dr. Berwick, Britain is having second thoughts.

We have a chance not to repeat the British mistake and stop the runaway train of nationalized health care before it leaves the station. We can repeal ObamaCare then replace it, adding real market reforms, like taking lawyers out of the operating room through malpractice reform, allowing insurance competition across state lines, and empowering health care consumers through health savings accounts or their equivalent.