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Kristian Niemietz writes for the Spectator
1 September 2023
In the Media
Julian Jessop quoted by the Daily Express
1 September 2023
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20 January 2026
Kristian Niemietz writes for CapX
IEA Head of Political Economy Kristian Niemietz has written for CapX on why NHS cultists are beginning to lose faith in their favoured public health service.
Kristian wrote:
“You can now, at semi-regular intervals, find articles in mainstream newspapers which take on the cult around the NHS, and point out the superior performance of European social health insurance (SHI) systems
“But at the same time, we also see the opposite reaction, namely, an aggressive doubling-down on NHS cultishness. There was a time when the NHS’s keenest supporters would have gone quiet when evidence of poor NHS performance emerged, hoping that nobody would notice.
“Not anymore. We have reached a situation where, paradoxically, it is the NHS’s most committed fanboys who shout loudest about instances of NHS failure. This is because, in the upside-down fantasy world they have created for themselves, the more the NHS fails, the more this proves that the fanboys were right all along.
“As it happens: I have long made the case that the NHS causes tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, a claim which I am basing on a simple comparison of survival rates for cancers, strokes and heart attacks between the UK and its better-performing continental peers such as Belgium and the Netherlands.”
You can read the full article here.
Kristian wrote:
“You can now, at semi-regular intervals, find articles in mainstream newspapers which take on the cult around the NHS, and point out the superior performance of European social health insurance (SHI) systems
“But at the same time, we also see the opposite reaction, namely, an aggressive doubling-down on NHS cultishness. There was a time when the NHS’s keenest supporters would have gone quiet when evidence of poor NHS performance emerged, hoping that nobody would notice.
“Not anymore. We have reached a situation where, paradoxically, it is the NHS’s most committed fanboys who shout loudest about instances of NHS failure. This is because, in the upside-down fantasy world they have created for themselves, the more the NHS fails, the more this proves that the fanboys were right all along.
“As it happens: I have long made the case that the NHS causes tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths every year, a claim which I am basing on a simple comparison of survival rates for cancers, strokes and heart attacks between the UK and its better-performing continental peers such as Belgium and the Netherlands.”
You can read the full article here.
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