I’m guessing Michael Moore won’t be making a documentary about this but shortages of dentists in England has resulted in people pulling out their own teeth.

Falling numbers of state dentists in England has led to some people taking extreme measures, including extracting their own teeth, according to a new study released Monday.

Others have used superglue to stick crowns back on, rather than stumping up for private treatment, said the study. One person spoke of carrying out 14 separate extractions on himself with pliers.

More typically, a lack of publicly-funded dentists means that growing numbers go private: 78 percent of private patients said they were there because they could not find a National Health Service (NHS) dentist, and only 15 percent because of better treatment.

Overall, six percent of patients had resorted to self-treatment, according to the survey of 5,000 patients in England, which found that one in five had decided against dental work because of the cost.

Almost half of all dentists — 45 percent — said they no longer take NHS patients, while 41 percent said they had an “excessive” workload. Twenty-nine percent said their clinic had problems recruiting or retaining dentists.

“These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly,” said Grant.

“It appears many are being forced to go private because they don’t want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can’t find a local NHS dentist.”

Now I’m not going to jump all over this story the way a conservative blogger would as proof that socialized medicine doesn’t work or the way a lot of liberal bloggers would over a similar story in the US. Socialized medicine has its advantages, which its opponents refuse to discuss and its disadvantages which its proponents refuse to discuss.

Michael Moore’s Sicko was as dishonest a documentary as was ever made, not because it promoted socialized medicine but because it was a dishonest work of propaganda that not only refused to recognize that there was any downside to socialized medicine but actively lied and made up facts to promote it.

Socialized medicine is inevitable in the first world countries and the US already has socialized medicine to a large extent. The problem is a refusal to discuss the pitfalls of it or admit that the ideal state might a way to empower doctors to provide care rather than layering more government bureaucracies and regulations over everything.

Proponents of socialized medicine, most egregiously in Sicko attempt to paint the picture of socialized medicine creating an idealized nanny state that takes care of everyone and solves all of our problems. It doesn’t. Socialized medicine creates a great burden on tax payers, on doctors and on the system and that burden winds its way to the people trying to receive the care in the form of shortages and delays. By refusing to discuss this issue or even admit it exists, proponents of socialized medicine are only shortchanging themselves.