God Save the Kingdom!

Americans love the British. After all, England was the country that gave birth to colonial America and its oppressive taxation gave birth to the United States. (Little did our founding fathers realize how oppressively we would eventually tax ourselves.) And when the British royals have a wedding, Americans tune in and hang on every word, every picture, every pip-pip (or pippa), and every cheerio. Let's face it, the Brits have class and we have class-envy.
So it's only natural that many Americans envy the British health care system and want to adopt it. They tout the U.K.'s government-run national health care as a model of efficiency, compassionate care, and affordability. Yeah, I guess you can't beat free, but remember the old adage, "you get what you pay for." The prescription for most ills in England seems to be "take a seat," as the Brits must suffer interminable waiting periods for hospitalization or to see a doctor. Nearly a million British citizens are typically waiting to get into a hospital. Is this really what we want to do to the greatest health care system in the world?
But, as Umbert's friend Nigel points out, we Americans are spoiled. Naturally, we like our diseases cured before they become terminal. We're funny that way. And we don't like rationing in this country. It reminds us too much of all the rationing we had to do when we were helping the Europeans out of a little mess called World War II. But that's exactly what's in store for us if Obamacare is allowed to be implemented.
I love our British cousins but if we really want to improve health care here in the states, we need to learn from their mistakes and avoid the disaster that has become the National Health Service.