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Immediately after WW2, Britain underwent serious social change and moved further towards the Left than at any time during its democratic history. The war was the major factor in precipitating this change, and the Conservative Party of Winston Churchill was defeated by a landslide in 1945.

The Labour government of Clement Attlee which took over set up a welfare state and nationalised services to the public, including health.

The National Health Service (NHS) was brought into being in 1946, and began acting at a practical level in 1948. British citizens and residents were from then on entitled to free healthcare:

e.g.

• Free consultations with doctors
• Free medication
• Free operations
• All expenses paid as a patient in hospital

There are currently other benefits too - as I'm still in full-time education I receive about £30 off glasses frames, for example.

Of course, all the money that the NHS requires is paid for by taxation. The current NHS budget is approximately £80 billion ($140 billion) and there are concerns about wastage in the service, especially as a large number of NHS hospitals are severely in debt.

I guess the question I want to ask everyone is:

'Do you think that a nationalised health service (or other services) is a good idea?'

Obviously, the money for the system would come out of your pocket, but you'd be entitled to free healthcare. I think that it is a fundamentally good idea, especially as the NHS exists alongside private health services (which you do have to pay for), but it is important not to let such a system become an economic black hole.

I think that if the USA reduced its Defence Budget (currently around $435 billion - 7 times more than anyone else) then it could afford some sort of nationalised health service, but only on a small scale as the US is so big. If it takes $140 billion to pay for a health service serving an area smaller than Oregon, then how much would it take to serve the whole country?

Government nationalisation is an idea that sounds good at first, but you later realize it's stupid. Government healthcare given out for free is always abused because it is free. That's why it is always in debt. Plus, your still paying for it, just through taxes.

One of the reason capitalism works so well is because the corporations are always trying to stay above the competition. If they do a bad job, then the competitors swoop in and take control of the market. Government can ignore this, because it collects money from taxes, not business. So whether or not a business venture is a total waste of money, they can do it.

I don't think its the size that matters..

And the reason of debts and waste is because.. The money is not being used well enough and efficiently enough..

If I remember right there were about 60 million people living in G.B


The idea itself is good. But its not being done so good.. Money is obviously being wasted.

With a nationalised health service you pay less as an individual for healthcare - but everybody has to contribute. Disease is something which ends up afflicting a lot of people so it's hardly redundant. I know that in the UK, if the NHS is seen to be inefficient (which is currently is) then there is a public outcry and things are done about it. The thing is that the NHS has become such a centre of waste that it is deeply entrenched. It can't cut salaries or it will lose employees to the private sector, and there would be substantial unemployment if it laid off staff (the NHS is one of the top 5 employers in the world).

The trick is to stop it from getting to that stage in the first place.

I think that NHS is a very good idea in general. Not everybody have money to pay for visits to doctors. This may not be such a problem in Britain/USA, but in less-developed countries it can be seen. Retired people are the ones that suffer from it. Why not to take some money from the worker class & "give" it to the old people through medicine, consultations, so on.

I think it would be used as an excuse to raise taxes. I also think that Little terms and conditions could change within it, because the government is in charge, maybe for the worst.

The defence budget wont be lowered. Alot of money is made out of war.

I don't support nationalisation of anything... I prefer to keep the government's function to a minimum and their involvement in our lives small. Plus, we'd all be paying for each other. Its like going out to dinner with some friends who all order steaks and you've just ordered a drink, why should you put in 15 bucks?

Minimalist governments are a thing of the past, though. The American Dream-style prospect of working hard to get to the top and therefore being able to pay for good healthcare, is essentially a sham.

There are always those who are not talented or fortunate enough to rise to a well-paid position. Should they be allowed to receive sub-standard medical care? Medicine is not something you should dole out according to who has the ability to pay for it. It's a matter of life or death in a lot of cases.

I know that you get lazy people who will try to take advantage of such systems, and it is the duty of the people and the government to find such scroungers and penalise them.

Because next time you might be the one getting all the expensive food.

We had a rather large discussion on national healthcare in our government class. One thing that strikes me as odd, is that the real cost of medical care does not come from paying doctors, but from prescription medicine. Having free doctors, although it seems nice and all, would not overall affect the cost of the medication, which is where most of the complaints for a national healthcare are comming from. Not to mention, the doctors would be payed less then they are, which seems to be one of the main reasons people bother going through med school. Take away that and they would make just as much money with less work in another feild.

One thing that I have seen is that massechusettes past a bill saying that anyone who had enough money to pay for health insurace would have to now, in an act to have a system of healthcare run by the state or something. I would completely oppose the idea of being forced to pay for something, no matter what it is. I am a big supporter of if you use it you pay for it, not everyone shares the cost, I hate supporting people who could support themselves.

If we had some sort of fund that people could go to to help get finances when they cannot afford medication, I would be all for. As long as its some sort of donation fund or something.

In the NHS you have both the doctors and medicines paid for.

Surely making a donation fund, or something similar, would mean that not enough people would pay into it for it to have a significant effect - medicines cost a lot, as you said. America still seems to have a Victorian ideology that charity should be the primary means of support for the needy. Europe has the ideology that it is the responsibility of the state to look after those who cannot look after themselves or do not have the financial capacity to do so. If a poor but hard-working labourer, who has been a model citizen all his life, contracts a crippling but treatable illness, surely he should not have to worry about not being able to work again because he couldn't afford medical treatment?

THe state does help out with the poor and needy, (my dad is one of the people who gives out food stamps) but there is quite a hassle to move through any government run organization. (From my experience.) There is normally a greater ammount of paperwork needed to seperate those who are eligible from those who are not.
And it is illegal for any hospital to refuse medical treatment on a patient when nessicary and life threatening. The problem lies that they cannot pay for it afterwards and go into debt.

On another point, much of the funding that goes into medication is used to furthur the drug companies who produce them. (Sure you could say that the rich executives take a lot of money, but the ones who deplete their own funds end up tanking, compared to the ones who put their money back into the system to get better medicare.)