S. Others complain about waiting lists for specialists or refusals by their GPs to see much-needed specialists. Specialists in fields of practice such as mental health and dentistry are often scarce, in certain areas of the country. And because of lower tax revenues due to the recession and rising costs due to the aging of the population, the NHS has placed limits on routine orthopedic surgeries, such as hip and knee replacements, and radically restricted the funding of infertility treatments (Donnelly 2010).
However, despite these admitted problems, the United States spends almost 15% of gross domestic product on health care compared with less than 8% in the United Kingdom and a higher proportion of the British population thinks their system works well. (Hull 2005). When the recent Conservative government was elected to power, it reassured the nation that it would take steps to bolster the NHS and believed in the concept of universal healthcare. It has even taken steps to expand, rather than limit access of patients to expensive, experimental drugs (Hope 2010).
Because of cultural resistance to 'socialized' medicine in the United States, a switch to a single-payer system does not seem feasible in the near or far future. Despite the fact that health...
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