I am not. My initial response was about system, not spend. You brought up the spend. I was

simply responding to your assessment that the problem was purely funding based, and that countries such as NL and France have better health systems because of higher funding. They don't. They have higher SPEND, because their budget is higher as a result of higher premiums (mind you, we also pay far more income tax).

By the way, the NL system wasn't great either a few years back. The reason you see an increased investment from the government's side from around 2005 to 2010 is because they invested in restructuring the entire system. Conclusions were that there was a massive overhead of bureaucracy and middle management. That was completely reformed resulting in huge improvements in quality and efficiency. That is what I am suggesting the UK does. Really investigate with an open mind rather than a political agenda which, of course, will never happen. Perhaps it is enabled by the fact that we always have a coalition here (and I don't mean two parties).

Posted By: Steve in Holland, Jan 8, 14:40:21