This morning, state radio was considering the hot new long-term study showing that the British are far healthier than Americans. NPR naturally thought that fully socialized medicine was more efficient.
But there may be some back-handed truth here. In England, care is strictly rationed, so there is less of it. Under the American system, designed to subsidize the production of more drugs, more and bigger hospitals, more medical technology, more doctors, etc. we get far more care than the British.
Could it be, for example, that the average Medicare patient should not be taking 11 or 12 prescription drugs? Have government subsidies given us a dangerous amount of care?
This is not a case for a socialist as versus a fascist system, of course, but for freedom.
9:23 am on May 3, 2006
