Excellent posting. I'll add a few comments:
At 14:32 07/11/2003 -0800, you wrote:
I read with amusement of the parliamentary debate in the UK where
the minister pointed out that they had practically reached their
target of a 17 month wait to get into hospital.
Some hospitals are now using inflatable tents in the grounds of the hospital in order to house incoming patients and thus inflate the figures of those "under treatment" in order to meet (mostly arbitrary) government targets. Considering the National Health Service has been in existence for 50 years now, it has now become an absurdity.
We also have the
description by Keith of his fear of entering a British hospital
because of infection.
That still obtains. I would go abroad -- see below.
National Health hospitals vary a lot, from very good to awful -
which is probably true of many systems. After care and senior
care is very good - or is within my limited experience (outside
of London). But, the reaction to my sister-in-law's surgery in
Germany after a fall was "Thank God it was done in Germany."
Probably unfair to Brit surgeons (those that haven't emigrated to
the US).
If you are street-wise enough and have a sympathetic doctor who knows his way around the bureaucracy, a National Health Service patient who has a 6-18 month wait ahead of him for an operation can go (for free) to a (private fee-paid) French or German hospital, the cost of which, including travel (and that of a consort), can cost less than the cost of an operation under the NHS. This is a "right" under the European Union set-up. One occasionally hears news of this happening (for "ordinary" people) on regional TV, but then it appears to be stopped. So long as it's kept sotto voce -- within the middle-class community -- then I'm sure it continues. This is the sort of thing that the government would want to avoid being widely known about 'cos they'd then be a stampede from most patients with life-threatening conditions.
I'm sure that the government run hospitals here are under-funded
and overworked. But, it seems that many of the private hospitals
are in pretty good shape and provide excellent service.
But they are expensive in this country -- 'cos there's a restrictive practice in the training of doctors and consultants. Even so, one quarter of newly qualified doctors decide not to enter the National Health service 'cos the conditions are so awful. On the other hand, the consultants do a few hours a week's work for the NHS (for, maybe $100,000 p.a.) and additionally earn twice as much by practising privately. Crazy, crazy. No government has had the courage to break this restrictive practice of the training consultants.
Present school funding in the US is around $7,000 per student.
If six teachers -- each specializing -- were to set up six
classrooms each with 35 students, they would have close to $1.5
million with which to teach the children. If they gave themselves
$100,000 a year in salary they would still have close to $900,000
to pay the rent and supply the textbooks and other materials
(much of which would have a life of several years).
This is the basic economic fact which sends shivers through the education burteaucrats at local and government level. At least two sizeable business initiatives (one led by the former Chief Inspector of Schools, Chris Woodhead) have well worked-out plans to produce good quality private secondary schools for a cost (and a profit) well within the average cost per pupil under the state system. They are only waiting for a voucher system. When the government have gone through their present phase of experimenting with different forms of state schools, then a future Labour government will have to bring in vouchers and then the dam will burst and the state system will start falling apart.
They might not have a cafeteria, but they would probably contract
with outside providers to supply low-cost school lunches.
Heck, with that amount of money they could probably take the kids
on a field trip to Paris. Or, they could add to their salaries,
or perhaps save enough money to erect their own school. I suppose
they would become something like existing Charter Schools, most
of which seem to do very well (though a few fail). Ordinary
public schools cannot fail, no matter how bad they are.
Absolutely. There's no incentive to do well.
For Ray's benefit, I'll mention that I sell choral music to scores of British private schools, but none at all (to my knowledge) to state schools. Music doesn't rate in the government's school curriculum. My grandchildren are learning instruments "at school", but only after school hours by a visiting private group of tutors who are paid fees.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>, <www.handlo.com>, <www.property-portraits.co.uk>
