1. Why do British people put up with the #NHS? Yes, it’s partly because English people in particular like masochism and suffering, but that’s not all of it. Some say it’s a religion, but they’re confusing the public propaganda for what people believe. In private, everyone moans.
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4. It would take ages to get an elementary service. It would be immediately apparent that the NCS was an inferior way to manage car ownership and distribution. It would be the laughing stock of the world, since it suffers from all the problems socialism always has.
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5. The
#NHS has all the problems socialism has. The poor quality service, irrational decision making, endless queues, lies to cover up the failure, waste, and educated people gaming the system just like the Soviet aparat did. Why don’t people notice?Show this thread -
6. But health, unlike a material object like cars, is a slightly ineffable quality. We’re not sure exactly what good health is, and we can always convince ourselves we’re ill. Similarly, the urgent nature of health problems is different to consumer demand.
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7. We want a nice car and we want our broken arm to stop hurting, but the nature of the satiation is different. The latter is more urgent, and there’s more pleasure in analgesia than acquisition of a consumer good. Consequently, we’re massively relieved at any satiation of need.
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8. The occasional and ineffable nature of health problems combined with an illusion (this is very common and shows how stupid most people are) that the NHS is “free” means that people put up with service from the NHS they would ‘t tolerate from a supermarket or car company.
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9. Socialism in the supermarkets or the car showroom immediately shows up in people’s conciousness: empty shelves, undelivered cars, and better products abroad. But health is hard for people to compare, unless they get ill abroad.
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10. This is compounded by an idea that any private health system just leaves people to die and by the fact that the NHS, like all bureaucracies (esp socialist ones), specialises in manipulating statistics and producing propaganda to say it’s great.
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11. A large amount of the
#NHS budget is just devoted to propaganda. In reality, NHS hospitals are ugly death machines with patients in the corridors and doctors finishing the weak young (Alfie Evans) and old off to free resources (see also: Liverpool care pathway).Show this thread -
12. The existence of the
#NHS is at the root of many, many problems in contemporary Britain. It also ties into mass immigration, and cripples poorer countries by poaching their most qualified staff.Show this thread
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Ha! You’ve just described buying a car in the Soviet Union or any of its satellite states!
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Yes, exactly. The difference is that with a car the problems are obvious. People still say good things about, say, Cuba’s health system that they wouldn’t say about Cuba’s other industries. It’s a cognitive blindspot.
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