Socialized Medicine

Saw this over at Club for Growth's Blog.

UK Telegraph

After years of Government targets pushing them to cut waiting lists, staff are now being warned against "over-performing" by treating patients too quickly. The Sunday Telegraph has learned that at least six trusts have imposed the minimum times.

In March, Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Health, offered her apparent blessing for the minimum waiting times by announcing they would be "appropriate" in some cases. Amid fears about £1.27 billion of NHS debts, she expressed concern that some hospitals were so productive "they actually got ahead of what the NHS could afford".

The lesson here? In the United Kingdom, if you do your job quickly, seeing more patients, you're going to be kneecapped.

Nice. Let's take two helpings of that here.

UPDATE: jk busting in on another's post, here. I wanted to give a link to a thoughful post on this topic from Perry at Eidelblog.

Economics and Markets Pharmaceuticals Posted by AlexC at August 7, 2006 1:49 PM