James Forsyth James Forsyth

The NHS isn’t free

If we are going to have a sensible debate about the NHS in this country, we need to deal with the myth that the NHS is free. Yes, the NHS is free at the point of use, but we all pay for it through taxation. I suspect that slightly fewer people would still ‘love the NHS’ if they knew precisely how much they were contributing towards its costs through all the taxes that they pay.

I say this as someone who has no desire to import the US system. Before I went to live in the States, I was quite a fan of the US healthcare system. But having lived there for four years, I became more sceptical of it. I was lucky enough to work for a company that offered incredibly generous health insurance, but the system was incredibly bureaucratic.

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