I'm sure the blogs are abuzz over this

interesting article at Opinion Journal.com. David Asman recently had the opportunity to compare the British and American health care systems when his wife had a stroke during their vacation in London.

Both had strengths and weaknesses. Here's my interpretation of his comparisons:

Both had highly competent, energetic, dedicated staffs.

British strengths: exceptionally friendly, solicitous staffs. No fear of lawsuits in evidence, nor evidence of oppressive bureaucracy. He found it easy to take his wife out for a stroll or for a restaurant meal.

British weaknesses: they're overworked, undersupplied and underpaid (in light of which their dedication and friendliness, as Mr. Asman describes it, is a marvel).

Unfortunately, lack of sufficient staffing leads to a lack of cleanliness.

Medical equipment is old.

American strengths: More treatment options offered and hospitals are very clean; equipment is new and there's lots of it.

American weaknesses: fear of lawsuits leads to excessive red tape in order to escape the hospital at all for a little while (our hospitals may be nice, but they're still not someplace you go to hang out if you don't have to), or otherwise deviate from the positive directives of your physician.

The bills are astronomical:

But what of the bottom line? When I received the bill for my wife's one-month stay at Queen's Square, I thought there was a mistake. The bill included all doctors' costs, two MRI scans, more than a dozen physical therapy sessions, numerous blood and pathology tests, and of course room and board in the hospital for a month. And perhaps most important, it included the loving care of the finest nurses we'd encountered anywhere. The total cost: $25,752. That ain't chump change. But to put this in context, the cost of just 10 physical therapy sessions at New York's Cornell University Hospital came to $27,000--greater than the entire bill from British Health Service!

...

Something is clearly wrong with medical pricing over here. Ten therapy sessions aren't worth $27,000, no matter how shiny the floors are.

Though, the fact is that almost nobody in America pays his own medical bills directly, we do indeed have state and federally funded systems for the poor, insurance for nearly everyone with a job and people who fall through the cracks can set up payment plans with the hospital (including reductions in the prices). Those are the options for the honest people. Some people just skip out. I've never heard of anybody going to prison for failure to pay a medical bill. Yet, anyway.

Asman says:

As for the quality of British health care, advocates of socialized medicine point out that while the British system may not be as rich as U.S. heath care, no patient is turned away. To which I would respond that my wife's one roommate at Cornell University Hospital in New York was an uninsured homeless woman, who shared the same spectacular view of the East River and was receiving about the same quality of health care as my wife. Uninsured Americans are not left on the street to die.

So we need a convergence, somehow. We need that friendly dedication to patient service he saw in the British hospital combined with the state-of-the-art equipment and medications you find in American hospitals. Asman mentions "loser pays" lawsuit reform for our guys, and some kind of incentive pay system for the British, more related to the aquisition of stuff than personnel; the people are wonderful, it's the places and equipment that stink.