I didn’t respond to this thread originally, because by the time I saw it Prairie Purrs had already posted the link refuting the claims of the email.

I can’t compare the two systems because I have no experience of the American one, nor do I know what changes are being proposed. It seems though that some people are interested in hearing people’s experience with other systems. Everybody here is entitled to healthcare through the NHS (National Health Service) funded through taxation. The individual does not pay for operations, treatment, hospital clinic, or doctor’s appointments. There is a prescription charge if you require medication. I think it is currently running around £5 or so. My father-in-law suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and gets two carrier bags worth of pills at a time, poor man. As a pensioner, he is exempt from prescription charges. In fact the Scottish Government aims to abolish prescription charges altogether by 2011.

In addition to that, I have private healthcare insurance as a benefit through my work, which I used once. The details are just too disgusting to recount here, but basically I had had an ear infection and the eardrum had perforated, so I was supposed to keep water away from inside the ear. I was going on holiday a couple of months later and wanted to be able to swim and dive, so the doctor requested an appointment from an ear specialist at a hospital clinic. When my appointment came through it was after my holiday – clearly a bit of gunge in the ear is not a life-threatening condition – so I got a private appointment for the following week instead.

It seems to me that when people have moans about the health service, they are aimed at the changes and cost-cutting measures, but not at the concept of universal healthcare itself. The system is in financial crisis though, and it is tinkered with constantly in an attempt keep costs down. Britain faces the same problems of an ageing population that other similar countries face.