Need a Dentist? Don’t Go to Great Britain!

A toothache is never fun. It is likely to be particularly painful in Great Britain. Reports Investor’s Business Daily:

Since April 2006, one in every 10 dentists have stopped offering treatment under Great Britain’s national health care system. Who can blame them? The government changed its contract with 21,000 dentists almost two years ago, and the result was more work for the dentists and limits on their earnings.

Because of the shortage, 2.7 million Britons have gone nearly two years without dental work. Alice Thomson drolly summed up the situation thusly in Friday’s London Telegraph:

“In Britain today, you can stuff yourself on deep-fried Mars bars, drink 20 pints a night, inject yourself with heroin, smoke 60 cigarettes a day or decide to change your sex — and the NHS has an obligation to treat you. . . . But if you have bad teeth, forget it.”

Ah, the wonders of socialized medicine!