Hi benjammin,

Undoubtedly, the US has some of the finest medical care to be had in the world. It also has some of the highest costs as a proportion of the countries GDP and yet there is a substantial minority of the population who have no access to this medical care at all.

In the UK we have the National Health System (NHS), which was established by a PHRASECENSOREDPOSTERSHOULDKNOWBETTER. government after WW2 in 1945. It is a government run health service with mainly free access to everyone in the UK. The medical services are rationed on a medical basis, that is medical needs of the individual come first in the queue rather than on the sum assured on the medical insurance contract. UK subjects pay for their medical care through general taxation. Any attempts by UK governments to introduce any free markets in to the UK health service NHS generally mean that they are not elected the next time around. It is electoral suicide to attempt to privative the NHS in the UK. Medical research is paid for through government grants through the Medical Research Council and charitable organizations such as the Welcome Trust as well as the research being carried out by the UK based pharmaceutical Companies.

The UK has some of the largest and most innovative medical pharmaceutical companies in the world with GlaxoSmithKline being the largest in the world. These companies have profited substantially because of the NHS.

As for Susan's comments, I don't think that she was putting forward any conspiracy at all. I fully understand the reasoning. Here in the Scotland, we have a reputation for some of the finest medical teaching and biomedical research in the world and yet the country has some of the worst medical problems in the population in the Western World including high rates of cancer and vascular disease. The issue is not to do with medically curing these diseases, it is to take another approach, to ensure that a naturopathic approach is taken. Try to reduce the incidence of disease rather than find a cure for difficult to treat diseases. That is one of exercise, clean air, good nutritious wholesome food and clean water and to dissipate the social stresses rather than trying to mask them with pills and potions, which everyone seems willing to pay a fortune for to wealthy pharmaceutical companies.

If there was a general cure for cancer it would most likely have been discovered over here in Scotland anyway. I've not heard anything about a general cure for cancer in the pubs in Dundee so far.