Piling on the MVNHS©

Quick, to which health care system is this quote referring:

" Nearly half of those questioned by the Patients Association said they wanted to see further cuts in waiting times for treatment, an urgent reduction in infections such as MRSA and Clostridium difficile (C. diff) and an increase in the number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare staff. "

If you answered "England's," you win a valuable prize.

We've long referred to the British healthcare system as the Much Vaunted NHS©, and watched as it slowly (but surely) disintegrates. There are, of course, those who think such a system would be just peachy here in the former colonies, but we have our doubts.

Latest case in point:

"The survey comes as new figures reveal that last year about 70,000 Britons spent more than £315 million paying for treatment in overseas hospitals and clinics to escape long NHS waiting lists and high rates of infection."

Ooops.

Granted, we recently blogged on this phenomenon, as a sort of counter-point to those who pooh-pooh our own system as somehow "broken." There's no question that our system is far from perfect, but a move to gummint-run healthcare is apparently no panacea.

As Keith Pollard, blogging at Treatment Abroad, observes:

"Despite huge investment in the NHS over the past 17 years, patients from the UK are voting with their feet and travelling abroad."

And there's this: almost a quarter of those surveyed support "a tax deductible insurance policy as a way of paying for treatment."

Well heck, so do we!

But that's another post.