England news headline: "Shortage of family doctors leaves healthcare in crisis"

Yeah, the great national health service. I have friends living by the myth that the British health system (single payor, socialist nirvana) is superior to ours (Of course, they live here, and not in Britain).

For all our problems, that's total nonsense.

From the UK Telegraph:

The NHS is facing a chronic shortage of family doctors after official figures showed some GPs were responsible for 9,000 patients.

Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents the UK’s primary care trusts, said it was a question of whether doctors were “able to cater as well for each patient with a list once they get much over 2,000 or 3,000”.

There are similar problems in the US; too many specialists, not enough internists, pediatricians, etc. But nothing like this.

Think it doesn't matter? Here's a posting I put up way back in September, 2007 from a feature in the Wall Street Journal -

Cancer outcomes in the U.S.A vs. the U.K. - and other countries

Last month, the largest ever international survey of cancer survival rates showed that in the U.S., women have a 63% chance of living at least five years after diagnosis, and men have a 66% chance -- the highest survival rates in the world. These figures reflect the care available to all Americans, not just those with private health coverage. In Great Britain, which has had a government-run universal health-care system for half a century, the figures were 53% for women and 45% for men, near the bottom of the 23 countries surveyed.

A 2006 study in the journal Respiratory Medicine showed that lung cancer patients in the U.S. have the best chance of surviving five years -- about 16%. Patients in Austria and France fare almost as well, and patients in the United Kingdom do much worse with only 5% living five years. A report released in May from the Commonwealth Fund showed that women in the U.S. are more likely to get a PAP test every two years than women in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K., where health insurance is guaranteed by the government. In the U.S. 85% of women ages 25-64 have regular PAP smears, compared with 58% in the U.K.

The same is true for mammograms. In the U.S., 84% of women ages 50-64 get them regularly, a higher percentage than in Australia, Canada or New Zealand, and far higher than the 63% of women in the U.K. The high rate of screening in the U.S. reflects access as well as educational efforts by the American Cancer Society and others.

And it goes on - hit the link above for more.