Government Healthcare Popular Like Concert Tickets in Britain

The queue that shames Britain: 7.11am and desperate patients wait in the cold and dark outside surgery - just so they can be seen by their GP  | Daily Mail Online:

People wait in line for concert tickets don't they?

In an increasingly Statist world, it is hard to get any real reports as to how state run medicine actually works. It doesn't require much thought to realize why that is so, but just in case your puzzler is sore, here are a few easy ones:

• There are many more well people than sick people and well people tend to like nationalized medicine. Why? Because it is cheaper of course! If you are generally well, then you have no idea how good it all works. It is like your fire insurance -- you likely assume yours is great, right? You most likely have never used it. 


• All the news sources tell you it is great. They even tell you that in the US. They also told you we were completely out of oil in the late '70s, starvation would be rampant by '90, the US was WAY past being able to produce more oil (for DECADES), lots of carbohydrates were good for you and the USSR was going to be around at least as long as the US (and was maybe even a nicer place). But hey, you might be unpopular if you thought independently of the mass media! 


• All those statistics on government run healthcare? They come from some GOVERNMENT! Of course you probably trust the government -- but still use FedX if it absolutely positively has to get there! But hey, just cuz they can't deliver mail all that well doesn't mean they can't do brain surgery. Right? 


• "You met someone", or "Everybody that I talked to ...". Strangely, so have I and 80% of those that I've talked to are on the other side -- in fact some of them came from Canada, England and other places to work in the US explicitly to get healthcare in the US! Sorry, neither my sample nor yours is REMOTELY statistically valid, and in fact it is REALLY hard to get statistical information on something like "how good is healthcare" because: 


1. Selection bias -- the coal mine canary problem. We interviewed 100 coal mine canaries as to the risk of their job, all responded it was risk free! See the problem?  The canaries that died in the line of duty (the reason for coal mine canaries) are not available for sample. In healthcare, those that have a REALLY bad experience are non-reporters in surveys, and in fact, those that are sick tend not to be anxious to pick up the phone, fill out surveys, etc either. (they are sick, remember?)
2. Pool removal -- those that have a really bad time with public healthcare may well have emigrated to another country (likely the US) rather than live on with the problem. Your health tends to be high on your priority list -- people have been known to leave countries due to high taxes, it is a rare person who doesn't find their health to be MUCH more important. 
3. Compared to what? If you live in say Canada it is unlikely that you get very much honest information about US healthcare (see media bias). The media is >90% Democrat, which means that their faith in government is statistically higher than someone who claims to be Christian having faith in the Virgin Birth. How would the average man in the street have ANY idea of what they ought to be comparing their healthcare to? 

Just like many things that I blog on, 90%+ of people have no exposure to any other view than "minimal standard MSM reporting", nor are they inclined to do much thinking about any of this. It's a damned shame that we have slipped to be so democratic. If we were more aristocratic, there would be no need for them to! 

'via Blog this'