Twelve Million Italians Pay for Private Healthcare Instead of Relying on Socialized Medicine

         
           Over 12 million Italians paid for private healthcare instead of relying on the “free” services provided by the Italian Republic’s socialized health system that is paid for by the taxpayers it is intended to serve, according to a report by statistics agency Censis, the Italian news agency, ANSA, reported.  Italy has a population of under 60 million.

           The main reason cited by the Italians who paid for care outside the state medical system, according to ANSA, was to avoid long waiting lines.  The second most common reason was to obtain better care.  Specialists, such as dentists, gynecologists and rehabilitation specialists, according to ANSA.

           The results of the study that prove that a significant number of Italians do not find socialized healthcare satisfactory suggests that the proponents of socialized medicine in the United States, or at least the federalization of health insurance with the concomitant heavy government regulation of healthcare as approved by a liberal Democratic Congress in 2009 and signed into law by President Barack Obama, were wrong to point to European and other Western models as shining examples of the wonders of socialism. Similar problems have been reported with both the British and Canadian healthcare systems, for example, that are held up as exemplary by liberals who made it a slogan during the debate over Obama’s plan that the U.S. was the only major industrial power without at least some form of government health insurance, as if the Americans ought to follow the lead of these other states.

           The study of the Italian medical system suggests that socialized healthcare does not work and ought to be avoided.  The U.S. should work instead to be a great leader in achieving prosperity through free markets.