The VA vs. the NHS

Will things improve if Obamacare enthusiasts get their wish and parlay the law's spectacular failure into what they wanted from the beginning, which is single-payer?  Charles Cooke describes the future in the form of what the NHS already is in Britain:

Because mistakes in delivering health care are catastrophic for those seeking reelection or trying to push an agenda, politicians in Britain spend the vast majority of their time worrying about perceived rather than actual improvement.  Government, by definition, has no competition, which means that those who staff it can lie and spin and cover up mistakes not just with impunity but with the full force of the state at their back.  Thus do results become less important than statistics, reforms less important than spending, and patients less important than careers.  Dishonesty is widespread.  Per the Telegraph, the British National Audit Office discovered in 2013 that

one in four hospitals is recording false waiting list times, with patients waiting on average three weeks longer than NHS records show.

Patients groups have said the findings were “scandalous,” and that hospital managers had been able to routinely fiddle figures so they could claim to be hitting Government waiting time targets, when patients were enduring far longer waits for care. 

Sound familiar?

Obviously people can lie to their customers whether they're in the private or the public sector.  The problem is enormously more difficult to handle, though, when the customers are stuck with a single provider in a state-protected monopoly.