Those who had the courage to continue watching the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics eventually saw a “tribute” to the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. It consisted of 1950s-style hospital beds, (many of which are still in use today) and nurses and doctors treating the “sick,” in this instance children who were victims of all sorts of childhood diseases. Not mentioned was the waiting period for one of those beds today can be six months or more and any drugs needed for treatment may be rationed or denied all together.
Britain’s NHS was established in 1948 by the socialist government that came to power in 1945, when the British people threw their wartime savior, the conservative Winston Churchill, under the proverbial double-deck bus. In addition to health care, they nationalized the coal mines, railroads, power companies and other industries. It has taken the British many decades to recover from the mistaken socialism of the 1940s. They have mostly ditched Marx and have returned to Adam Smith and the economic reality that state ownership produces only state disaster. Most of the state-owned industries, including the railroads, have been returned to private ownership or operation, and soon, if their elected representatives in Parliament act in their interest, most of their health care system will once again be returned to private, for-profit ownership.
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