Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Ted Cruz highlights the dangers of EU healthcare systems in debate with Bernie Sanders
Ted Cruz highlights the dangers of EU healthcare systems in debate with Bernie Sanders
Apr 29, 2026 12:44 AM

In an age of sound bite orations and 140-character manifestos, the nation received a rare treat from CNN this week. On Tuesday night, Senators Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders debated the merits of national healthcare reform for two hours. The format gave both sides the opportunity to make substantive arguments, and Ted Cruz did not disappoint.

The Texan pointed out that Senator Sanders, an advocate of Scandinavian socialism, has suggested the United States adopt policies more akin to European welfare states which, Sen. Sanders says, spend less than the United States on healthcare:

He often points to Canada, the United Kingdom; he says, “Why do we pay more?”

Well, there’s a reason we pay more than those countries. We get a lot more and a lot better health care.

Let me give you some basic facts. … The United States, population-controlled, delivers three times as many mammograms as Europe, two-and-a-half times the number of MRI scans, and 31 percent more c-sections. We provide more health care.

Not only that, in the United Kingdom, for example, [there are longer] wait times. In 2013, you waited 72 days for cataract surgery; you waited 89 days for hip replacement, 95 days for knee replacement. There are 3.7 million people in the United Kingdom right now on a waiting list, waiting for health care. …

A 2001 report noted that 39 percent [of women] over 80 in the United Kingdom received surgery for breast pared to 90 percent of the women under 50. And that men and women under the age of 55 were two-and-a-half times more likely than those over 75 to receive cancer treatments.

Although true, this list hardly scratches the surface. I note on the Acton Transatlantic website that the NHS faces such pressures the British Red Cross says it constitutes a “humanitarian crisis.” I pull together some of the relevant data:

The NHS has missed its goal of a four-hour wait time – from the moment a patient enters an accident and emergency (A&E) department to hospital admission or discharge – every month since July 2015. Unable to meet their chosen benchmark, Health Minister Jeremy Hunt responded by suggesting the government lift the four-hour target for most patients.

Long stays in crowded emergency rooms are not limited to the UK. Across the Atlantic, a report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that10 percent of Canadians had towait 28 hours to get a hospital bed in 2014.

By contrast, the average wait time in the United States was just over two hours in 2010-2011, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).…

After canceling a record number of urgent surgeries in November, NHS officials announced they had canceled all non-urgent surgeries between December 16 and January 16. In Kent, the moratorium has been extended until April.

And according to Dr. Kristian Niemietz of the UK’s foremost free market think tank, the Institute ofEconomic Affairs (IEA), tens of thousands of Brits have died who would have survived had they been treated in another nation’s healthcare system.

CNN believed the topic is important enough to merit two hours of broadcast time. To the British people, it is a matter of life and death. People of faith will want to understand the real dangers of socialized medicine before endorsing well-intendedprinciples that harm those made in God’s image.

Read the details here.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
The Trial of Jimmy Lai
Hong Kong’s biggest freedom fighter is about to stand trial. Here’s what you need to know. Read More… Jimmy Lai is no ordinary political protester. The 76-year-old Hong Kong entrepreneur and newspaper publisher has sat in solitary confinement in 35-pound handcuffs for more than 1,000 days as he prepares for the trial of his life. On one side are Lai and his defenders. On the other side is the Chinese Communist Party, preparing to keep Jimmy in prison for the...
The Capitalist Manifesto
Entrepreneurs of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your quintiles! Read More… Fulton Sheen once remarked that “not over a hundred people” hate the Catholic Church, but “there are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church.” The same might be said for free market economics. While attacks on capitalism abound, many of them are in fact critiques not of capitalism but of a misunderstanding of capitalism. That is why every generation...
The Holdovers and the Odor of Sanctity
Already winning pre-Oscar awards and gaining attention for its performances, The Holdovers proves to be both a throwback to an earlier era and a step forward for director Alexander Payne. Read More… When es to film genres, the kinds, the sorts, the categories of picture defined by certain conventions and characteristics, we’re all familiar with sci fi, the western, the detective crime drama, the war epic, edy (which includes mini-genres like , absurdist (think Airplane!), black (think Dr. Strangelove). Then...
Can the State Love God?
Philosopher Sebastian Morello makes the case for the political establishment of religion. Has the time e for conservatives to agree that this may be the only way out of our current moral morass? Read More… The 20th century was an outlier in the history of the human race. For the first time, secularizing movements spanned the globe. In many places, they succeeded by suppressing the political expression of religion. The great religions lost their capacity to direct culture and society....
Going My Way: An Enduring True Fairy Tale
The Oscar-winning Christmas classic, starring Bing Crosby, is a mainstay of holiday viewing, and for good reason—despite the sentimentality, it says much about our longing munity, justice, and fathers. Read More… Every Christmas, I try to write about Christmas movies, especially about old Hollywood, because the best directors at the time considered it worthwhile to make movies that would chastise and cheer up the nation, indeed remind people of the spirit of Christmas and thus try to fit Christianity into...
Javier Milei and the Promise of a New Argentina
The election of Argentina’s first libertarian holds much promise for economic reform and an end to the status quo that has wrecked Argentina’s economy, once one of the most robust in the world. But can the new president fulfill his promises, especially given the “caste” arrayed against him? Read More… Nothing guarantees that a country will remain prosperous forever. President Reagan stated that “we are never more than one generation away” from doing lasting damage to the primary institutions of...
The Quiet Revolution of Place
A new book offers concrete solutions to entrenched problems that have contributed to the fragmentation, isolation, and desolation munities across the country. Step one is to start right where you are. Read More… Sociologist Robert Nisbet declared our era to be “singularly weak” in social inventiveness. In a new book on local solutions to America’s social ills, author Seth Kaplan agrees—with some exceptions. “Our modern era is not the first one in which the U.S. has weathered rapid social change,”...
Machiavelli and the Invention of Modernity
A new book by legendary Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield takes up the challenge of furthering our understanding of Machiavelli’s “enterprise” and how it has shaped our world over the past half millennium. Read More… Harvey Mansfield recently retired from his position at Harvard University after a long and storied career. He’s almost an institution himself, well-known for hard grading, demanding teaching, a book on manliness long after such things were permissible, and superb translations of Tocqueville and Machiavelli. His retirement,...
William Wilberforce: Abolitionist, Reformer, Evangelical
“God Almighty has set before me two great objects … the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.” Read More… On February 24, 1807, the House of Commons voted by 283 votes to 16 to end the trade in human slaves in all British territories. The e was testimony to the tenacity, zeal, mitment of the most prominent evangelical Member of Parliament at the end of the 18th century, William Wilberforce (1759–1833). It had been a long...
Cultural Christians and the Work of Remembering
Were Christians always stronger in their profession of the Faith than in their practice of it? plicated. Read More… Let me begin where I’ll also end: Nadya Williams’ latest book, Cultural Christians in the Early Church (Zondervan), is a masterful exercise in historical research, pelling portrait of early Christians who professed Jesus with their words but not with their actions. It’s also thoroughly enjoyable to read. Engaging in style and rich in human detail, it’s designed for a general audience,...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved