‘Death By Queue’ Is The Health Crisis Government Asked For
Death by queue is a phrase coined in the United Kingdom, where “queue” describes a line of people waiting for something. Death by queue refers to dying while waiting in line for care that is technically possible but unavailable when needed. Death by queue has long been a feature of the much-vaunted British National Health Service (NHS), which was the model for President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA). Recent reports note heart attack victims dying for lack of care-in-time from the NHS and calls for private physicians (those few who remain) to provide timely medical care because NHS (government) physicians cannot.
Americans also experience death by queue. However, since that pandemic is politically unpopular with Washington, the complicit corporate media ignore it.
Prior to Obamacare, average maximum wait time was already unconscionable: 92 days. With ACA expansion of government-provided, no-charge Medicaid insurance, maximum wait times increased to 120 days.
In Illinois over three years, 752 Medicaid enrollees died waiting for desperately needed medical treatment. An internal Veterans Affairs Department audit concluded that “47,000 veterans may have died” waiting in line for care that was technically possible but unavailable. Veterans are covered by government-provided Tricare insurance.
An accurate estimate of death by queue for all of the U.S. is not available. In Great Britain, at least “117,000 die[d] on waiting lists for NHS” in 2020 and 2021, according to The Evening Standard.
