hamster care
n.— «Perhaps the purest examples of hamster care are in Canada and Germany. In these countries there is a fixed budget for all services provided by doctors and a standardised schedule of fixed fees. Doctors try to earn their target income by providing more and more services. But as the number of services provided by all doctors rises and exceeds set total budgets, so the fee for each service goes down. Like frantic hamsters the doctors run ever faster—but to no avail.» —“Hamster health care: time to stop running faster and redesign health care” by Richard Smith British Medical Journal Dec. 23, 2000. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The German phrase Der Bus hält an jeder Milchkanne literally translates as “The bus stops at every milk can,” and refers to a bus that stops at every little out-of-the-way town. This is part of a complete episode.
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