The headline in the British newspaper The Telegraph overstated it: “UK cancer survival rate lowest in Europe.” Four paragraphs down we learn, instead, that “In total, 52.7pc of women survived for five years after being diagnosed between 2000 and 2002. Only Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Czech Republic and Poland did worse.”

The funny thing about the predicament — and by “funny” I don’t mean to imply that I’m laughing in any way — is that Britain’s National Health Service spends three times more per patient than Poland does.

Well, as we’ve seen here in America’s schools, throwing money at problems just doesn’t work. Not when the real problem is the quasi-socialist method of distributing the goods. Incentives go all out of whack, even information goes out of whack. Bureaucrats and managers suck up huge hunks of money without actually directing services where services are due.

One researcher in Britain explained the cause pretty well: “We have good evidence that survival for lung cancer has been compromised by long waiting lists for radiotherapy treatment.”

Yup, I’ve argued this before: socialized medicine rations care. And the chief way socialized medicine does this is with rationing by waiting.

You cut down demand,
To meet your limited supply,
If, by making them wait,
Enough patients die.

There’s rhyme there, but not much reason.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.