"Tim+" wrote in message
...

Private practice in medicine has a long history/tradition of cutting
corners/costs to increase profits at the expense of patient safety. I
doubt dentistry is any different.

Its precisely the opposite. Private medicine often funded by insurance is what drives
a lot of research into new medicines and treatments, This goes for vets as well
as human doctors. Years ago if you took bonzo or tiddles to the vet with something
serious there would be a long face from the vet and advice to put them out of their
misery. Nowadays you can keep bonzo or tiddles alive almost indefinitely
providing once the pet insurance runs out, you've got the odd few grand to
spare every few months.

None of this would have happened without pet insurance or had people still been
taking their pets to free animal clinics,

And the same applies with the NHS. who are always playing catch up. Eithjer trying
to justify the cost of expensive new medicines and treatments developed on the back
of private health care funded by health insurance as featured on the front page of the
"Daily Express" or coming up with convincing reasons why people's "loved ones"* are being
condemned to a premature death.


michael adams

*I only just now made the connection between this execrable saccharine phrase and
Evelyn Waugh's novel of 1948 "the Loved One" - which is how US undertakers -
sorry morticians, refer to the stiffs consigned to their care when dealing with
grieving relatives. Maybe UK underatkers have caught up by now.