Monday, February 16, 2009

Do it yourself dentistry

The UK has "free" health care, which makes it rather curious why apparently great numbers of people there prefer to perform dental treatments on themselves than have a professional do it. You see, free (itself a misnomer -- it is simply tax funded) does not mean unlimited. If you don't ration by price then you have to find some other means.

I've long believed that one of the best arguments against socialized medicine is the inside of the average British person's mouth.

Incidentally, I was at a party a week ago where I met a Brit who works as a health care consultant here in the U.S. I asked for her opinion about the competing health care systems and she said that while the bottom 20% of Americans would probably be better off with a British-style system that the other 80% are better off with the U.S. system. Mind you that doesn't mean that the U.S. system does not need reform, but it is food for thought.

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