I know you weren't asking me, but I thought I'd chime in with my 2 cents about NHS.

When I was in the UK about two years ago, for that year's empeg meet (I'd gone over there after the meet ended), I had what I now believe to have been a kidney stone.

I was by myself in London when I developed a blinding pain in my left kidney area. I didn't know what else to do, so I had the hotel clerk call an ambulance for me. It didn't take too long for the ambulance to get there. I got taken to a hospital (St. Mary's) and was made to wait in the waiting room. I ended up having to wait several hours (though it felt like longer) to see a doctor. This sounds like a long time, and felt like it, too, but to be fair, there were people there with problems clearly worse than mine, and I've waited as long in US hospitals. She performed some tests and decided I had an infection. I was given some horse-pill sized ibuprofen and a course of Cipro. At this point, the pain had subsided significantly, so I was happy with the diagnosis and release.

The point of all of that is that that service (and you Brits may be irritated by this) cost me nothing, even though I wasn't even a UK citizen. If I had had that done in the US, even if I had good private health insurance, an ambulance ride, an emergency room visit, and two prescription drugs would have easily cost me $750. If I was poor, I simply couldn't have afforded it.

I felt like the service I got was slightly worse than what I would have expected in the US, but only very slightly, and based solely on the wait. And I have had worse in the US, as well as better. And paid the same amount for both.

All in all, I was rather impressed.