The fear of the "Polish plumber" in France -- where they also admit that it takes forever and costs the earth to get plumbing work done if you use the official system -- is a pretty good sign of a system rife with perverse incentives.

And what of a system which is nominally free-market, wherein the government spends more than the governments of other more "socialist" systems, wherein private spending is more than government spending, and yet which delivers worse results for society as a whole than said more "socialist" systems? A situation increasingly written into the very bodies of its citizens?