Interesting concept, compare health care in the UK for dogs (no government-run health care) vs. humans. The rambling sometimes funny article in the Wall St. Journal begins by pointing out:
As a British dog, you get to choose (through an intermediary, I admit) your veterinarian. If you don’t like him, you can pick up your leash and go elsewhere, that very day if necessary. Any vet will see you straight away, there is no delay in such investigations as you may need, and treatment is immediate. There are no waiting lists for dogs, no operations postponed because something more important has come up, no appalling stories of dogs being made to wait for years because other dogs—or hamsters—come first.
The conclusion hits a theme not often covered in articles about our health care system — that the US invents a lot of care and the rest of the world free loads off us:
I continue to measure the health-care system where I live by what I want for myself and those about me. And what I want, at least for that part of my time that I spend in England, is to be a dog. I also want, wherever I am, the Americans to go on paying for the great majority of the world’s progress in medical research and technological innovation by the preposterous expense of their system: for it is a truth universally acknowledged that American clinical research has long reigned supreme, so overall, the American health-care system must have been doing something right. The rest of the world soon adopts the progress, without the pain of having had to pay for it.
via The Club For Growth – http://www.clubforgrowth.org.