COMING SOON TO A CLINIC NEAR YOU – AT 9:25 A.M. ET:  The people around Obama are enamored of the European and British health-care systems.  Much better, you know, than the one here, run by these American ruffians.  Why, do these dumb Yanks understand what free contraception can do for the morale?

Not so fast.

In fact, many foreign health systems, like Britain's National Health Service, are plagued with problems that don't afflict us here.  This is stunning: 

MILLIONS of Britons living with chronic pain are being “sidelined” by the NHS, often unable to access specialist care and being left to battle their condition with little support.

A hard-hitting report has slammed “patchy” services for people blighted by constant, long-term pain and say an absence of guidelines across the health service means patients are at the mercy of a postcode lottery to get treatment.

The landmark report, a collaboration between the Royal College of GPs, the British Pain Society, the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition and the Faculty of Pain Medicine, issues a stark warning to government and healthcare providers that current systems and levels of care fall well below satisfactory standards.

It says chronic pain is a “High Street disease” which affects millions yet is grossly mismanaged.

Dr Beverly Collett, chair of the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition and consultant in pain management and anaesthesia at Leicester Royal Infirmary NHS Trust, said: “Pain destroys lives. It is a travesty that we are allowing millions of people across the UK to live in constant, chronic pain.

COMMENT:  We've read a number of stories here in recent months about serious problems with NHS.  Yet when concerns are raised in the U.S. about potential problems with Obamacare, they're generally ignored by the media.  (Some doctors are already warning about extended wait times for surgery, something we see in Britain, Europe, and Canada.) 

We are about to have our first major experience with a kind of nationalized health care, unless Obamacare is stopped by a Romney administration.  We should insist that problems, and worries, be addressed seriously, and not ridiculed by media "sophisticates."  When Sarah Palin warned about "death panels" in the Obamacare law, she was laughed at.  She was referring, of course, to committees that will rule on what care will be made available, and to whom.  And yes, they can easily evolve into death panels, as they have in other countries.  Sarah was not wrong.

Welcome to the new world.

July 5, 2012