Episode 186: Death by Socialized Medicine: Charlie Gard vs the NHS

If you’ve heard about the situation in the UK regarding Charlie Gard, you may be one of a minority in the US. Seems there are bigger stories here, like the dissecting of the handshake Trump and Putin had at the recent G20 meeting. (Gotta’ have your priorities.)

Just a few months old, Charlie Gard has a very rare medical condition that there is no known cure for, so doctors in the UK have said that Charlie must die. They’ve even prevented the parents from taking Charlie to the US for an experimental treatment at their own expense. Socialized medicine often decides who lives or dies based on the cost to taxpayers, but clearly money is not the issue here. It’s all about control.

This episode has my thoughts on the matter. Things have gone upside down.

Mentioned links:

MP GRAPHICS blog

MP Graphics Facebook page

Timeline: Parents battle to save Charlie Gard

Show transcript

I got 2 bits of feedback after episode 184, regarding how the city of Seattle’s employment picture got worse after the recent rise in the minimum wage. DocH said, “Wow. I was not aware of the Seattle thing. Is the left-wing liberal lunacy Juggernaut getting a ‘timeout’?”  No, they’re not getting a timeout. When the Seattle city council heard what the study (that they commissioned!) was going to show, they cut it off at the knees and started another study with a “friendlier” group to try to discredit it. This is not about economics or concern for the worker; it’s all about politics.

Also, my cousin Mark wrote me to explain how this same situation has affected his wife in the left-leaning state of New York. He said that while she works retail and never got anywhere near full time, when the State raised the minimum wage there, her hours dropped by a day’s work. “I have been watching businesses trying to keep ahead of the wage increase issues here with increasing automation and fewer hours to those that are working. It is exactly what every conservative politician said would happen. Darn it if they actually said something true.”  Yup, darn it. Those conservatives were actually right. But the fact that this keeps happening doesn’t seem like it’ll change minds. “Don’t confuse me with the facts” seems like it ought to be on a sign advocating for a higher minimum wage.

By the way, Mark has an incredible give for graphic design, in many different styles, and has won a few awards for it. He does commissioned work, and if you want to see examples of what he’s done, check out the show notes for his blog or search for MP Graphics on Facebook. He also did a possible new logo for the podcast which I’m putting in the show notes.

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If you haven’t heard about the case of Charlie Gard, you need to. A more cautionary tale of the problems with state-controlled medical care you aren’t likely to hear.

Charlie was born on August 4th, 2016, apparently perfectly healthy.  Very soon, however, he was diagnosed with Mitochondrial DNA Depletion Syndrome, which inhibits his cells from processing food. He’s only the 16th person ever to be diagnosed with this.

Charlie has spent most of his life in the Great Ormond Street Hospital (or GOSH) in Bedfont, in West London, England. There is no known cure for his condition, but the parents, Chris and Connie, heard of an American doctor who had an experimental treatment. It was very expensive, so they created a GoFundMe page and raised, on their own, 1.3 million pounds; about $1.6 million. That was on April 2nd.

On April 3rd, a High Court judge began to consider whether Charlie’s life support mach...