Expensive and of low quality

Though there are many things I like about England and our life here, I think it is a fair comment to say that most things are expensive, and of an insufficient quality to justify the expense: Housing is slipshod; plumbing is atrocious; restaurants a gamble that is often not worth the money; car repairs legalised theft; and the list goes on. Today people are talking about cancer survival rates. The UK spends an average of £1,500 (around $3,000) per person per year on NHS (National Health Service) costs, roughly three times that of Poland, and yet the survival rates are about the same. I don't know what the U.S. spends, but it's survival rates are the best in the world. I am not so surprised at that: I have often said that if I ever had a really serious disease, there is nowhere I would rather get treatment than the U.S., though also there is nowhere I would rather NOT have to pay the resultant medical bill.
It is funny--I always rated Japan's medical system as extremely poor: I consistently had very poor experiences with mis-diagnoses, extreme arrogance, high cost (the equivalent of around $1,800 per person per year), and very poor education of doctors, who are selected directly out of high school based solely on grades and test scores into medical schools. However, the NHS has surpassed some of the problems I saw in Japan. Getting treatment, even on private health insurance, for even fairly acute conditions like a broken finger, took me six weeks. Cancer can progress fairly quickly, so this waiting time is likely one of the major factors in the poor showing. Doctors don't seem to have the mentality of following up, and really 'owning' a patient like a doctor in the U.S. would, making sure that 'their' patient got the treatment they need, in a reasonable amount of time, even if it wasn't themselves giving the treatment. Japan suffers this as well, but it is much more surprising in the UK, where you must always see a GP before getting any type of specialist treatment. The difference is that in the US GPs seem to see part of their job as not only medically examining and giving an opinion, but of insuring that the patient gets the right medicine, sees a specialist that can help them, and does whatever is needed to get WELL. UK GPs do not seem to see their jobs in the same way. They don't really seem to care if someone has a cold for four weeks, has a high fever, and is really miserable. Sorry, but you have a cold. No medicine to lessen the misery, no real kind words of encouragement, and an attitude of 'whaddya want anyway, you have a damned cold fer Chrissakes!' Ditto my experience with severe knee pains after running a half marathon. My US GP would have talked to me about how to avoid aggravating it, might have referred me to a coach that she knew of, if it had gone on too long would have spoken to me about surgical options, and so on. My Japanese doctor gave me a cortisone shot in the knee and told me not to run anymore, which I wasn't really happy about, but at least it was something!
The NHS is often held up in the U.S. as an example, along with the Canadian system, of the perils of socialised medicine. And it should be. It is easily one of the most expensive and lowest values for money of any in Europe! No, it is not just the pub meal that makes you question what exactly it was that you are paying for!