Flibbertigibbet

Newsflash: People Hate Working for Tyrants

Mister Bookworm forwarded this article to me this weekend:

BBC: Dental students 'will shun NHS'

Almost one in five dental students plans to shun NHS work completely, a study has suggested.

The results suggest a new contract designed to make NHS work more attractive has had limited success.

The University of Dundee-led study reported in the British Dental Journal found 18% of final-year students planned to stick to private work.

In contrast, of the 141 students questioned, just 3% planned to work solely for the NHS after graduating.

Some 79% of students planned to split their career between the NHS and the private sector, according to the survey.

A similar poll of first-year dental students carried out two years ago also found levels of interest in an NHS-only career were very low.

However, the proportion of respondants who planned to work exclusively in the private sector was just 7.5%.

You've heard me say it before, so no one should be surprised: the government doesn't pay. Ok. I haven't said that before. At least, I haven't said it like that. Usually I say things about how government interference in trade in variably results in higher prices, lower supply, gluts/shortages, inflation/deflation, joblessness/homelessness, and other economic disasters. The only thing the government is really good for is waving guns around and we should concern ourselves with making sure they wave guns at the right people, which is to say criminals and invaders.

When governments nationalize industries, you typically see a phenomenon dubbed "brain drain" where talented people in that particular industry will actually leave the country to practice somewhere less restrictive and more profitable.

What is interesting here is that as Britain has painfully discovered how woefully unsuccessful socialized medicine is, they've been working to re-developed a private sector for the same services. As a result, they've created a sort of artificial border within their own markets. So, now we see an internal "brain drain." That's kind of neat. It's kind of like watching the pathology of a disease as it progresses.

Of course, also in that article is this outrageous statement:

Labour MP Kevin Barron, of the Commons health committee, has said dentists have a "moral obligation" to give the NHS more as it costs £175,000 to train them.

It's just like a communist to attempt to play the morality card to justify slavery. I still haven't managed to stop being shocked when they do so without irony, though.