Just another example of the big problems with putting government bureaucrats in charge of health care: the rules are more important than the patient.

A FATHER of two died after a six-hour wait at A&E despite having a letter from his GP saying he must be treated immediately.

Stewart Fleming, 37, arrived at his local hospital with his wife Sarah clutching an urgent note from his doctor.

But instead of being sent to the head of the queue, Mr Fleming had to sit and wait in agony as a virus ravaged his body, causing his organs to fail.

It was three hours before he was even assessed to establish whether he was a ‘priority case’.

Even then it took another three hours to be admitted – six hours after he had arrived at the hospital.

(…)

Mrs Fleming continued: ‘I was told we had to go through the normal process, even with the letter from the doctor.

‘We got to A&E before 5.30pm. He was finally called through to be examined at 11pm. He could have had all those hours on a monitor and they might have been able to stop the virus.’

Before you lefties start whining about insurance company rules, let me remind you… in America you can (at least for the time being) get insurance from another company. In the UK, you cannot; you’re stuck with bureaucratic nonsense like the above.

If America follows the UK down the path of socialized medicine, you’ll see stories like that from US hospitals, as well.

I am the first one to say that there are serious problems in the US healthcare industry. But more government isn’t the solution, it would instead cause more problems, as ably illustrated by the story above.