Unlike Canada, it is legal to buy private medical services in the UK. Therefore, the government is violating their own law. Of course, this has also happened in the USA from time to time.

On the shitty quality of socialized medicine, I completely agree.

On the debt side, not really, our national debt is much smaller as a percentage of our GDP than anything in Europe. Ultimately, we can also just start selling land - the US Government owns about 80% of Nevada for example, and probably more than 50% of the 50 states. Or as the de facto world currency, just print the money. Europe has neither option available to it.

Our debt problem has always been 'fixable'.

The UK debt is over 100% of its annual GDP, Canada is nearly 100%, and the US is around 72% (despite our deep recent recession). Pre-recession and pre-bailouts, pre-Obama socialism, we were around 35%. Pre-9/11 and 16 years of war, we were around 20-25% in today's dollars.

Poland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway would be the only healthy-looking ones in Europe.. around 40%.

Italy - 135%
Japan - 250%
Portugal - 130%
Spain - 99%
Greece - 190%
France - 99%
Germany - 70%
Brazil - 90%

Notable lows -

North Korea - 0.4% (slave labor is cheap and no one will lend them money anyway)
Russia - 13%
China - 20%

Single-payer Death Panels.

It is worst in the UK because they have had socialized healthcare the longest, since just after WW2. It has been in a state of slow collapse for a decade or more now. In Canada, we have only had it since the 60s so it is less degraded than the UK, but moving inevitably and slowly in the same direction.
You will have it in the US as well (I do not think it can be stopped), but I think it will degrade at a faster rate, because you are starting from a position of much heavier national debt than the other examples.

Laughed at Sarah Palin's predicted socialist "death panels" is exactly what I was thinking from the get-go.

On one hand, I wouldn't spend a dime on keeping this kid alive. He is going to die, and the older he gets the more aware of the event he will be.

On the other hand, using volunteer money, which I largely include the corrupt Vatican money in, or bringing the child home should never be obstructed.

There is wrong behavior here. I suspect the hospital is motivated by ego. Not sure what motivates the British Government.

Yes. Thomas Sowell calls it a problem of visionaries without evidence in his book "Cosmic Justice". These are the people who have visions that they are hell-bent on pursuing regardless of the costs to society or the outcome. Think Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Mao at the extreme end. Sowell actually talks about Lenin for several pages because of his use of data distortion to "prove" his agenda.

My senator Ron Johnson summarized it like this:
"Patients neither know nor care what things cost. We have virtually eliminated the power of consumer-driven, free-market discipline from one-sixth of our economy."
https://nyti.ms/2u6hIpb

Isn't the "omnipotent observer" problem contained within socialized medicine? i.e., to me it appears that a necessary end result of socialized medicine--eventually--is this type of overriding individuals' abilities and wishes ("death panels," if you wish to call it that). Maybe I'm just slow to finally come around to that realization and everyone else in the Gulch is saying "duuhh"

Medicine is a business. Nothing more. Even when molded to look like it's a government product, it's only for profit. I like the concept of profit. But, I mention it because the average dolt thinks medical professionals go through what they do just because they like to help people, and that such a product can be "free". The paradigm from which the masses operate is so far from reality that it's basically like lemmings leaping off a cliff.

This is the end result of two misguided notions: the first being socialized medicine and the second being the "omnipotent observer" fallacy which underpins all big government initiatives. The unfortunate part of this case is that nothing in Britain will change and most in the US will fail to acknowledge that this is a very real death panel.

I work in the medical industry.

You're only seeing the very tip of the iceberg...

We saw this coming...and feared it would come here and we were right when the obobo careless act was signed.
I saw this in Europe but never this bad...it just tears my guts out, so I spent the morning trying to tweet trumpet to convince him to Send the medical care To Baby Gard.

No idea if it'll be read or heeded...I know, it is kinda dumb on my part but just had to try.