But health aid ISN'T free, Rob. NOTHING that has to be produced is free.
Of course not, Russ, that has never been imagined! The point is, it's free at the point of delivery, where and when you need it most,
Of course it's paid for via a mixture of taxation and social security payments, but those are deducted from your earnings and when you have no work or make too little for it to count, you still get exactly the same service, regardless.
And yes, Britain and Spain, in my experience, both offer separate, private insurance if you want it; in Spain, the same docs often work in both systems and hospitals, public and private. We paid private insurance for years, until Ann discovered in an emergency that the treatment she got in the state system was every bit as good - if not better - than we bought privately on top of that; some ops that are diagnosed in private hospitals are sent straight to the state institutions for the doing.
The massively important thing is this: nobody is left lying on the floor whilst their insurance is checked out, which is how I believe the great jazz singer Bessie Smith was allowed to run out of blood. You are simply not under any obligation to go private at any stage, however rich or poor you may be.
Apart from some impossibly expensive drugs that are probably too expensive for private patients too, cost of medication is not a problem.
