In the UK, if you don't pay your taxes, you get into trouble, just like every other country. In that way the NHS is as much a tyranny as any of the other things we pay taxes for, like roads, schools and emergency services. People here in the UK like having the NHS. The US system, where unlucky people get a choice between bankruptcy or death, sounds pretty horrible to us. When I see people get upset because their taxes are going to subsidise the healthcare of others, I don't understand it at all. It seems short sighted and selfish to me. Personally, I gladly pay to keep my country healthy. This is Britain, not some backwater third world country where poor people are left to fester and rot on the streets.

We do have private health insurance here in the UK, but I'm sure there are restrictions on who can do business and where and when. I think that is unavoidable. There are obvious difficult trade-offs when legislating this kind of thing. Not everyone can be made happy. However, the freedom to operate a medical business without government interference is not as important as ensuring that everyone has access to adequate healthcare. If your rights as a business owner get trampled on at the cost of saving human lives, well, frankly that's just too bad. There are plenty of other lines of work you can get into where there aren't quite so many dangerous and perverse monetary incentives.