Reply #42: Well it was set up in 1948 [View All]

[Merryweather]

as part of a 'cradle to grave' welfare state by Clement Attlee's Labour Government. The UK has been way ahead of its time on welfare - we've had state old age pensions since 1908( 25 or so years before FDR's New Deal gave you the beginnings of Social Security) and the NHS since 1948, almost 2 decades before Medicare/Medicaid were created as part of LBJ's Great Society).

I don't know a lot about it since that was decades before I came into the world, but from what I've read about it, it seems that there was some opposition to it from the Conservatives, but the most serious opponents of the National Health Service Act were doctors and the British Medical Association, who apparently felt it would strip them of their right to practice independently. They nearly did scupper the NHS Act, but Aneurin Bevan - the architect of the NHS - basically bought them off, or as he put it: "I stuffed their mouths with gold."

There was nothing like the current crazed anti-healthcare reform nuts then in the UK - it was a different time, it was before 'me me me' became the sole concern for an awful lot of people. Also, Britain was in really awful shape after the war - more like America during the Depression than post-Bush America. We needed a massive loan from you guys (which we only finished paying off 3 years ago!)just to survive. People weren't in a position to protest.