Comparison...

I was fascinated by this article in by David Asman in OpinionJournal, on the differences between British and American medical care.

...We spent almost a full month in a British public hospital. We also arranged for a complex medical procedure to be done in one of the few remaining private hospitals in Britain. My wife then spent about three weeks recuperating in a New York City hospital as an inpatient and has since used another city hospital for physical therapy as an outpatient. We thus have had a chance to sample the health diet available under two very different systems of health care. Neither system is without its faults and advantages. To paraphrase Thomas Sowell, there are no solutions to modern health care problems, only trade-offs. What follows is a sampling of those tradeoffs as we viewed them firsthand....

The author finds some good things about British medicine, especially the quality of the personnel, and the good decisions that can be made when you are not worrying about lawsuits. But the overwhelming impression I got, was, socialism kills! The surprise of the author at how the American hospitals had clean and shining floors tells you most of what you need to know.

It's worth reading the whole thing...