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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (67579)	10/16/2008 3:33:55 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

There's actually a LOT of debate at the moment about whether to have more of a market model of healthcare. Most British are - unsurprisingly - against it, probably because (as you say) "well, it's free, isn't it", so this can't be made too overt without losing votes. I shan't bore you with too much detail, but the current govt is struggling to pass on more than a small portion of the system to private companies. It's not popular. It's also noticed that these companies (presumably because of the additional commercial structures and the requirement for profits) tend to be no cheaper, indeed often more expensive, than exactly the same quantity and quality of care provided by the NHS: because of the way the work is franchised out, the cost is quite visible so this is comparable. Most of the deficiencies in the NHS around waiting times were basically because care was effectively rationed that way - there was not enough to go around. Which is unsurprising when you consider that until ~2000 the NHS spent about 7% [I think - have not verified] of GDP on healthcare, far less than other countries. I believe it's now up to around 12% and most waiting lists are very low. But I believe I'm right in saying that the US is the only developed nation not to have state-funded universal healthcare?