Health Insurance or Nationised Health Sevice?

In the news recently there have been two fairly contrasting stories running related to this issue, namely, the health reforms in the USA and ideas about privatising areas of the UK NHS. Currently the USA operate on an insurance based system, where in the case of minor ailments, the bare minimum is done untill the infermed are fit enough to walk, and then they are booted out of the hospital if their insurance either won't cover it or is inexistant. The UK works contrastingly, offer a service to all, church-goers, criminals, common people alike, in an attempt to provide a good which otherwise probably wouldn't be provided in sufficient quanitities by a free market.

Though we may complain about it, generally the NHS is widely considered one of the superior health systems in the world. Doctors from all shores come here to work in a busy and in the grand scheme of things, a good service. In the aftermath of the world recession our coalition government are looking to make savings on government spending, and it has recently been proposed as an idea to privatise certain areas of the service. This movement towards a health service where we pay for our care could prove to be very unpopular, especially with those who have paid their national insurance for many years only to be left now with no free health care.

Contrastingly, in the states Obama is trying to push through a bill which will see their system move towards a nationalised set up. What he wants is for people who do not have insurance due to poverty to still be able to have a high quality care, and therefore try to remove the disparity between the rich and the poor in terms of health.

It seems odd that both of these nations are motivated to do what they are doing in attempts to cut government spending. Obama argues that helping out the poor by charging the richer more for their health care amoung other methods, will cut their defecit as the state will not have to keep bailing out hospitals for fees induced by the uninsured. The UK government's idea is that by making people pay for some NHS services, the government will pay less and people will start to have to pay more, which will lead to additional income for the government coupled with lower spending.

It seems that these two health case studies are both driven by the state of the world economy, there is solely the hope that the governments involved will act in the interests of the citizens and not for short term gains.