Washington Post rips UK health system as NHS pleads with Brits to avoid hospitals

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The Washington Post editorial board tore into the United Kingdom‘s healthcare system Thursday as the National Health Service (NHS) pleads with Brits to avoid going to hospitals for non-life-threatening ailments, questioning why progressives in America are convinced a similar system could work in the United States.

In a new editorial, the Post noted that the British press had compared the NHS’s messaging to “COVID-era stay-at-home pleas,” which included asking patients in need of care to avoid hospitals and other medical facilities in order to “protect the NHS.”

“It wouldn’t be Christmas in Britain without an imminent threat of the healthcare system collapsing,” the Post quipped. “This year, it was the combination of a ‘flu-nami’ and a five-day strike by residents that had U.K. Health Secretary Wes Streeting warning about ‘the Jenga piece that collapses the tower.’ That tower is the National Health Service.”

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Washington Post rips UK health system as NHS pleads with Brits to avoid hospitals at george magazine

An ambulance departs from the Royal Free Hospital on January 9, 2025, in London, England. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

The Post asked progressive American politicians why they believe an NHS-style healthcare system would work in a country of 300 million, when it has so clearly failed in a country of only 70 million.

The editorial board asserted that while circumstances may change, “the NHS has existed for years in a perpetual state of emergency,” arguing that the state of the nation’s healthcare system had only gotten worse since the pandemic.

“Hospital corridors overflow and routine procedures get canceled due to a catastrophic event commonly known as ‘winter.’ It comes around every year, yet the system, despite annual funding increases, still somehow remains unable to cope,” the Post contended.

According to the editorial board, as of October, there were 6.24 million Brits waiting for treatment in England — or approximately 10% of the country’s population.

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“This is the dark reality of single-payer and a cautionary tale for the third of Americans who mistakenly believe Medicare-for-all is a good idea,” the editorial board warned. “Both funded and run by the taxpayer, the NHS relies on rationing treatment to stay afloat. This results in patients with serious health problems forced to wait for months or years to access treatment, hoping they don’t die before the doctor sees them.”

A doctor looks over a COVID-19 patient in the Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho, Aug. 31, 2021. (AP)

The Post added that wait times for healthcare “get exacerbated by the politics that inevitably become intertwined when government, rather than consumers, calls the shots.”

Despite spending “well above” the OECD average on healthcare, the Post noted that the U.K.’s health system falls short of countries like Australia, Denmark and South Korea, which spend far less in terms of their GDPs.

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The editorial board added that “reform is largely impossible because of a religious-like devotion to the NHS,” arguing that “once someone gets an entitlement, it becomes virtually impossible to pull it back — no matter how costly or inefficient.”