Roseanne Milburn had to wait six years for a knee replacement. Afterwards, she developed complications and an infection that required another procedure, but -- thanks to a lack of beds -- she had to wait another week for that surgery. Thanks to those delays, Milburn ended up having her right leg amputated.
She lives in Canada, so at least the surgery was "free."
As Democrats and Republicans continue the Schumer Shutdown over providing healthcare for illegal immigrants, Democrats keep blaming Republicans for the current state of our medical system. They hope Americans have the collective memory of a goldfish and forget it was their party that rammed Obamacare -- sorry, the "Affordable Care Act" -- down our throats fifteen years ago with the promise it would save us $2,500 a year on insurance premiums.
Instead, the cost of health insurance has skyrocketed, and it's now a bigger part of our budgets than housing and food costs.
Remember that the entire purpose of Obamacare (passed in 2010) was supposedly to reverse this trend. pic.twitter.com/hVlIrzmBkP
— AG (@AGHamilton29) July 7, 2025
During COVID, Democrats pushed for additional insurance subsidies and voted for a sunset date on those subsidies. Now that dusk has arrived, Democrats are acting like their hair is on fire as they scream about the "Republican healthcare crisis."
But don't be fooled. This was all by design. Democrats wanted the healthcare system to become bloated, expensive, and on the verge of collapse so they could swoop in and "save" us by enacting socialized "universal healthcare."
Bernie Sanders -- a longtime proponent of such garbage -- said as much.
Our health care system is not just broken. It is on the verge of collapse.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) October 17, 2025
We must ask ourselves: Why is the richest country on earth the only major nation that doesn’t guarantee health care to all? pic.twitter.com/YYQnNTzVeU
If the story about Ms. Milburn bothered you, imagine the number of stories we'd get here in the US under a socialized medicine scheme. America has 8.2 times the population of Canada, and it can barely manage its "free" healthcare system.
Right now, the average wait time for a non-emergent knee replacement surgery in the US is from two to 12 weeks. Not six years. And emergent care for infections still happens immediately.
While there are issues with our healthcare system, and massive government subsidies and oversight is one of the many issues, the fact of the matter is this: America's system is better than any socialized one. The ways in which we fix the problems is a topic for another column, but we can start by repealing the ACA in its entirety.
We cannot, however, follow Canada and the UK down the same disastrous path.
Not only would quality of care suffer and wait times skyrocket, but Democrats would absolutely use "free" healthcare as a political cudgel. We all saw how Democrats acted during COVID, where they demanded the unvaccinated be denied medical care. It's not hard to imagine a scenario where they deny you -- or your family -- healthcare for holding the wrong political opinions and not complying with their demands.
It is, after all, all about control.
And for Ms. Milburn, the price of "free" healthcare was literally a leg.