I’m not going to fisk this editorial in the Washington Post, critiquing recent actions by British National Health. Actually, I agree with some of their points.
My point in calling attention to it is to ask can you imagine the editors writing this two years ago? I can’t. It’s a remarkable change of voice on their part. Is their explicit criticism of U. S. progressives a first for the WaPo editorial page?
I’m reminded of one of Samuel Johnson’s witticisms:
Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
With some minimal efforts I found some other editorials criticizing socialized medicine. However, this one felt more like propaganda. I read lots of health care policy and economics and there are very few people who advocate for an NHS type system. Most people advocate for some system that more closely emulates the other countries the editorial cites.
Of note, satisfaction scores in the UK are generally equal or better than for the US and the UK does better in preventable mortality. Still, the UK generally ranks pretty low in quality of care rankings, mostly ranking just ahead of the US. Again, note that the editorial ignores all of the other countries with better care and even better satisfaction scores.
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2023/05/26/a-comparative-analysis-of-the-us-and-uk-health-care-systems/
Steve