OTHER THAN THAT THINGS ARE GOING GREAT:

Scottish NHS 'is failing cancer patients' (Hélène Mulholland, December 8, 2005, The Guardian)

Scotland's health boards are unlikely to meet any of the targets they have been set for improving cancer treatment rates, despite being given extra funding, watchdogs revealed today.

As many as 53% of urgently-referred cancer patients in Scotland are having to wait longer than two months for treatment, according to the Audit Scotland report on the state of healthcare north of the border.

More money but NHS fails to recruit doctors (LOUISE GRAY, 12/08/05, The Scotsman)

TARGETS to recruit hundreds of extra doctors and thousands more nurses are unlikely to be met as the NHS struggles to make huge savings, Scotland's spending watchdog warned yesterday.

The European working-time directive, new training practices and the increasing age of staff means Scotland will need hundreds more doctors in the next few years.

But a report from Audit Scotland said it was "unlikely" sufficient consultants would be recruited in time and it would be difficult to find enough nurses.

So here's the question: if you set out today to try and destroy the health care system of the United States, wouldn't you adopt the kind of national health that Democrats insist we should have?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 8, 2005 7:43 AM