The title of this entry shamelessly stolen from Mark Steyn over at NRO’s The Corner – but its just too appropriate:
Gordon Brown should mark the 60th anniversary of the NHS this year by turning its birthday on July 5 into an extra annual bank holiday, a leading Labour thinktank will urge today.
The Fabian Society will say the prime minister has long dreamed of establishing a “British day” to celebrate nationhood. The most appropriate date would be on the anniversary of the health service – an institution which appeals equally to people in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
An essay by Rachael Jolley and Sunder Katwala, the society’s general secretary, points out that England and Wales have eight public holidays, compared with at least 10 in most EU countries. Scotland has nine and Northern Ireland 10.
In 2006, before Brown became prime minister, he told a Fabian conference: “What is the British equivalent of the US fourth of July, or even the French 14th of July? … What is our equivalent for a national celebration of who we are and what we stand for?” He said he had in mind giving the country a new public holiday.
There’s just something extraordinarily Euro-socialist in that – another paid day off, and to celebrate dependency upon a bloated, ineffecient government bureaucracy. It’d be like having AFDC Day here in the United States. One wonders – is what the Brits stand for really socialised health care? Long waiting lists, poor quality of care, routinely going over budget? Thus another page is written in the very final chapter of the Story of Britain.
Blogs For Victory 
rubbersoul,
Your comment is just bizarre as the Schaivo case had nothing to do with rights – it had to do with basic morality. Do we allow a fellow human being to die of thirst without even trying to give her a drink of water? That was the issue at stake – not pulling out the feeding tube, not whether she was in a persistent, vegetative state…but whether we, as human beings, should allow a person to die in front of us without our making any move to succor her.
All that it would have taken to satisfy the needs of morality would have been to put a cup of water to her lips – if she couldn’t drink, then that was how it would be…but to fail to even try? That was a monstrous cruelty on our part…
Diana,
Whence comes this monumentally stupid leftwing view that if someone isn’t in favor of socialised medicine, they must then be in favor of no health care services at all?
I mean, are you really thinking that I don’t want to provide health care to the poor? Do you think I’m that cruel? That I’m that inuman?
Mark,
So pouring water on Terri’s face woulda been OK, but you draw the line at heart surgery?
Why isn’t heart surgery “basic morality”, or any health care for that matter?
btw, saying the Schaivo case wasn’t a ‘rights’ issue is bizzare. The whole conservative argument was based around a “right to life”.
Cheers!
“Also, emergency care in the United States is first class, and is available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.”
It’s the same in the UK, only they don’t send you a bill afterwards if you have no insurance – since everyone is on NHS. Are you suggesting that the US is better here? Or that first class emergency room service is free to the poor in the US?
CW, I take issue with your bankruptcy stats–just what kind of lifestyle were these people leading before they took ill? Sure, maybe a catastrophic illness pushed them over the edge to bankruptcy, but were they all living in squalor(sp?) beforehand?
People in America are notorious for living above their means, buying houses and vehicles they can’t really afford.
Of course, it’s all the fault of corporate America. Just ask Silky…
Mark,
The vast majority of Americans on Medicare are not poor. The vast majority of Medicare recipients are people who might well be able to buy private health insurance if they weren’t be supported by the Federal government. It’s largely the financially-able sponging off the employed.
So, how about the Republican Party adding a plank that says that Medicare shall become a means-tested program funded by income taxes instead of payroll taxes? Every worker still gets a 2.9% pay raise with every check and the federal budget gets much closer to being balanced. It would be a big blow against American socialism and ought to be a big electoral boost for the conservative GOP as we know that Americans are hungering for more conservative government. Don’t you think?
Also,
Of course, it might have been cruelty to try:
Does it actually matter whether YOU believe in the NHS or not? The people of Britain do and they want it to exist, therefore it is the governments duty to provide it. The government is there to serve the british people’s needs, it just needs to be reminded of this occasionaly. The government serves the people and we in Britain want and are proud of the NHS therefore OUR money pays for it and we are happy that it does. You may not consider it a right but in Britain it is seen as a right even Thatcher didn’t do away with it.