ninme

The Telegraph - Treatment isn’t working

There is a consensus that the state should pay to treat people when they are ill or injured. It doesn’t follow, however, that the state needs to own hospitals, run clinics or hire doctors.

There are plenty of ways, within a publicly funded system, to increase patient choice and incentivise specialists to compete for custom.

Most other countries do precisely this, mingling private and public provision and operating some form of insurance system.

Britain is matched only by Cuba in its tenacious commitment to government-run hospitals.

When Fidel Castro dies, we shall be alone; and a new generation of British medical students, trained at great expense to themselves and the taxpayer, will doubtless head off to Cuba, and exploit the greater opportunities there.