 Episode 6 – Socialized Medicine and the tragic case of Alfie Evans. What is socialized medicine? Government experts in their wisdom created a health care system owned and operated by the government. All health care facilities are owned by the government and all doctors and health care professionals are employed by the government and the government subsidizes all health care services. It is medicine for all. On May 9th, 2016, Kate James and Tom Evans welcomed their first child, Alfie Evans, into the world. By the end of the year, however, their joy turned to horror as their infant son began suffering from seizures. Doctors diagnosed Alfie with a degenerative neurological condition similar to severe epilepsy. He remained on life support for a year, but doctors believed he would not recover and recommended ending his treatment. Alfie's parents refused to consent to ceasing Alfie's treatment, but Kate and Tom lived in Liverpool, where they were compelled to seek care exclusively through the British government's socialized health care system, the National Health Service. Instead of respecting Kate and Tom's wishes, as doctors are expected to do, the doctors applied for court approval to withdraw Alfie's life support without parental consent, both the U.S. and British common law systems recognize the best interest principle as justification for overruling medical decisions parents make on their children's behalf. In the United States, where health care is not a state-run enterprise, judges occasionally invoke the best interest principle to overrule parents who refuse life-sustaining treatment for their children. In Britain, where the state owns the health care system, the principle is applied differently. In Alfie's case, as in many similar cases in the United Kingdom, the British courts sided with the doctors, invoking the best interest principle not to provide treatment, but to withhold it. Kate and Tom were unwilling to give up, so they attempted to seek medical asylum in the United States and Italy. Their efforts won them an enormous following, nicknamed Alfie's Army, and the Italian government even granted Alfie citizenship in an attempt to aid the parents. Yet the British courts still refused to let them take their child out of the country. British officials deferred to medical experts, who were certain Alfie would be unable to breathe unassisted, assured that Alfie would pass quickly. The judge ruled that it would be inhumane to keep him on life support. But the experts were wrong. Alfie was able to breathe without life support, albeit with great difficulty. As Alfie gasped for breath, his parents begged the medical staff to give him oxygen, but they were now legally obligated to refuse. In the name of upholding Alfie's best interest, British officials forced him to suffer five excruciating days off life support before he finally passed away. Alfie's story is but one example of the British government defying parental rights and deciding that it is in a child's best interest to cease treatment. These tragedies reveal one of the oft-overlooked dangers of placing the government in charge of health care. When government bureaucrats are empowered to make medical decisions for you and your family, as they did for Alfie and his parents, whose interests do they really have in mind?