On Britain's National Health Service

There's been a lot of bashing of the National Health Service going on lately. The NHS as you may know, is the bureaucratic behemoth that runs Great Britain's socialized medical program. I don't say "socialized medicine" in a sneering, town-hall disrupting way (well, maybe a little bit); here "socialized" is simply an adjective describing the funding mechanism and not a value judgment.

Many conservatives on this side of the water have taken to talking smack about the NHS and how poorly it serves its patients. Many Brits have taken to rising to the defense of the NHS lately, pointing to the ten-month life-expectancy advantage one enjoys as a Brit over an American.

Here's an interesting, even-handed treatment of this little dust-up from a Brit who thinks that maybe, just maybe, the truth hurts (for the Brits).

One of the most insidious things about this whole healthcare debate is the degree to which the "eventual outcome" is ignored--but we can see it in this article on the NHS. What's happened in Great Britain is that the country has built a huge healthcare delivery system known s the NHS that guarantees every British subject a baseline level of care, and it is a level clearly below that most Americans now pay for. What's happened there is that those with the means then ALSO buy private health insurance...so you get taxed out the ying yang to pay for "healthcare for everyone" then wind up paying for your own anyway (if you have the means). Americans wonder why this is better, and they see that this is where we are headed.