With physicians fingered as perpetrators in the attempted terrorist attack on the Glasgow International Airport, some have suggested that state-run health care systems breed terrorism. Pittsburgh’s own Jerry Bowyer took the opportunity of recent Fox News appearance to argue exactly this point.
If we go with a British-style, or German-style health care system, we’re going to have British-style or German-style recruitment problems, and we’re going to turn to the Arab and Muslim world for doctors, because they’re producing a lot of them. And, if we organize ourselves that way, Neil, we’re going to have bureaucracies, which are going to find it hard to shield themselves from terrorists.
Bowyer’s meme proved sticky; days later Mark Steyn opined in the Orange County Register that the “legacy of Britain’s socialized medical system is a growing reliance on foreign doctors,” while New York Sun columnist Daniel Johnson echoed similar claims.
