Thank God for the NHS

American healthcare makes our system look good, writes Ross Clark. But however revolutionary Barack Obama’s health reforms are, Americans will still pay through the nose

Had I a more devotional attachment to free-market economics I suppose I would be joining all those Republicans condemning Barack Obama’s health reforms. I have written enough about the failings of the NHS over the years to fill an entire symposium at a Washington think-tank. How tempting, then, to echo the sentiments spewing out of Fox News, predicting US bankruptcy and state-sponsored euthanasia. ‘Say no to totalitarianism,’ appealed Republican congressman Devin Nunes, not content with the charge of mere ‘socialism’ made by many of his colleagues. ‘When you turn 65, hello death panels,’ predicted Rush Limbaugh, building on an earlier threat to emigrate to Costa Rica if the reforms were passed. The reforms, ventured Jim Quinn on the Clear Channel, represent ‘the final nail in the coffin of the individual free human being.