NATIONAL HARBOR, MD — Congressman Steve Scalise introduced a panel discussion called “Prescription for Failure: The Ills of Socialized Medicine” at CPAC on Thursday. He established what was at stake in 2020: “2020 will be a contrast election,” he said, between Trump’s freedom agenda or socialism.

“You don’t want socialism, you surely don’t want socialized medicine,” he said. “Tens of thousands of Canadians come to America for life-saving treatment. Do you see Americans going to Canada for life-saving treatment?” he asked rhetorically.

“Healthcare is only one example of what’s at stake in this election,” he said, before concluding that individual freedom will win out in 2020 and predicted that Republicans will keep the Senate and win back the House.

Author Dr. David Schneider, an orthopedic surgeon from Colorado, explained how with socialized medicine, wait times for care “are disastrous.” In Canada, the wait time to see a specialist is two years, and then another two years to get the procedure.

“People in this country would go crazy if you were told you had to wait four months,” he said.

Then he explained how Princess Diana would be alive today, if not for socialized medicine. “Princess Diana was in the car accident in France,” he explained. “They actually don’t have any trauma specialists in France.”

“For the first hour after that accident, she was still in that tunnel,” he continued. “And after an hour, they took her to a nearby hospital and she was alive for another three hours and they couldn’t control the bleeding from her pulmonary artery.”

Schneider explained that “there were no trauma-trained people there.”

He continued, “I really believe, knowing what I know about her care and comparing it to what Congressman Scalise had, Princess Diana would have lived had that accident happened here in America.”

Peter Pitts of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, moderated the discussion, and explain the ills of the socialized healthcare system that the Democratic Party is advocating for right now. “Price controls equal choice controls,” he said. “Socialized medicine stifles competition, stifles innovations,” he said, noting that there are two vaccines being developed for the coronavirus right here in the United States.

Barbara Kolm of the Austrian Economics Center, spoke about the problems with European socialized medicine so often cited by Democrats in the United States. “Don’t fall into the trap,” she warned. She explained that in Europe, two-thirds of tax dollars are spent on welfare and healthcare, leaving everything else to be divided amongst the remainder. In Europe, you are “forced to take whatever you get, unless you’re able to afford private insurance.”

“There is no free lunch with healthcare,” she added.

Marc Palazzo, of the Coalition Against Socialized Medicine, also spoke and explained how America provides most of the medical research and development for the world. “That will stop with socialized medicine,” he warned.

“All the Democratic candidates want to get to single-payer medicine eventually,” the crowd was warned, but Bernie Sanders just wants it faster than the rest. So, the main takeaway from the event was not to be fooled. The Democrats want to destroy our system of healthcare, which is by no means perfect, in favor of a system that has failed to provide the quality and access to healthcare we enjoy here in America.

_____

Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis