Liberals Diminish Personal Success and Excuse Personal Failing

[GGT]

So are you saying Geegee that we CAN slash our welfare spending because of the NHS?

I don't know enough specifics about UK "welfare spending" programs, or how assistance is decided or provided. But if you're saying recipients get free council housing with satellite tv, plus some kind of cash stipend used to buy smokes....then yeah, you probably have room to cut, or restructure...without ending your NHS.

When it comes to "welfare" or "entitlements", or what's considered a national Public Good --- you and Lewk should hash out where basic medical care belongs. Conservative Brits seem to like and support NHS for public health, as well as public education and public transportation, as proper and productive uses for public tax dollars. Conservative Americans (in general) don't.

Lewk seems to support the idea of rationing healthcare by income and/or employment; buying private insurance and/or using employer subsidies (with corporate tax credits); letting our insurance industry control access/delivery/affordability/quality of care, and calling that free-market-enterprise....or-something. Would you agree with that approach, Rand?

I'd like to see two conservatives between the pond duke that out with each other, and leave "liberals" out of it.

[RandBlade]

There's a difference between our systems in that they both already exist.

I would not support breaking up the NHS and going to the American system overnight.
Nor would I support breaking up the American system and going to the NHS overnight.

Realpolitik dictates that you act in the confines of what you already have and go from there. If I was drawing up an "ideal" system from the ground-up it probably wouldn't look like either.

[GGT]

There's a difference between our systems in that they both already exist.

I would not support breaking up the NHS and going to the American system overnight.
Nor would I support breaking up the American system and going to the NHS overnight.

Realpolitik dictates that you act in the confines of what you already have and go from there. If I was drawing up an "ideal" system from the ground-up it probably wouldn't look like either.

Evasive answer. Nothing was said about drawing a new "ideal" system from the ground up, or switching systems overnight.

The debate between a conservative Brit and a conservative American (who are both free-market-capitalists), would be about who 'should' move toward the other's side --- public universal care vs private purchased care. Plus the role of government.