Even though Margaret may have felt this way, the UK is a very success socialistic country, and provides amazing citizen benefits that American could only dream about.
First, I've been the UK. We'd have to drastically cut our standard of living down, to meet the UK standard. Some of the poorest people in our country, have a standard of living that UK citizen could only dream about.
Further, those 'amazing benefits' are not so amazing. The waiting lists for getting treatment in the UK, makes the way the VA treated our vets here in the US, look like they were getting royalty service.
When our vets were waiting months, their average citizens were waiting years. When we were appalled by how long our vets were waiting to get help, people in the UK were saying "what? That's it?".
Well maybe you do make good arguments. I've never lived in the UK, sounds like you have, and must be a citizen to comment with so much emotion. I did however live in Australia for 5 years, and became a Citizen. It seems your primary focus was around Healthcare. So I'll comment about the Australia Healthcare system. Every Australian has free (paid by taxes) healthcare, that I and my family used several times. They also have a private system as well. So if you have the money, by all means go to a private hospital, with your private insurance (just like in America) If you don't however, people are not turned away, or stuck with absurd bills that they'll never be able to pay off.
I had my second child in a public Hospital in Australia. By weekly doc appointments, ultrasounds, 5 days in a private room after the baby was born. Everything that I would receive in America I got in Australia and It cost us $0... What a relief it was, and wish many other can experience not having to be scared of what the bill is going to be. It's a great feeling, let me tell you. On a separate occasion I needed an MRI, which I got in a few days after my doctor requested it. They sent me to the private hospital, and the public system paid the bill. Great service, with out the worries.
So when our Vets wait months (which is awful, and needs work) it doesn't mean other free services are bad. They can be quit good when managed properly.
I did not live there for an extended period of time. But I did live with missionaries who did live there, as well as military personnel stationed there. External to that, I listen to the BBC out of Briton every single day, and read numerous publications, most notably from the London School of economics.
Further I have many friends who live in the UK to this day. Obviously the biggest reason I know so much about the UK specifically, is because all the information sources are in English. I recently did a major post on Greece, and that was hard because all the source were in Greek.
That said, you mentioned Australia. Here's the biggest deception of socialism. Any socialist system, will work fantastically, as long as the money keeps coming.
As Margaret pointed out in the 1980s, eventually you run out of other people's money.
Yes, you had free health care, and it was fantastic. Soviet Russia also had free stuff for it's people too... until they went broke, and everyone was starving, and the entire empire imploded on itself.
Perhaps that was an isolated example?
What about the subsidized food in Venezuela, under Hugo Chavez's "21st Century Socialism"?
Food shortages. Electricity shortages. Heck, they have shortages of paper products.
Still could be isolated.
Cuba in the 1950s, had hospitals and health care, on par with American health care.
Cuban health care today.... isn't quite the same. This is the Cuban version of a CVS or Walgreen.
Let me ask you, do you think all of these systems got that way, in a day? Or even a week? How long did it take for American quality care, to end up shacks with broken windows?
It didn't happen in a month. It happens over a long extended period of time.
If it happened quickly, everyone would see socialism as the failure that it is. But because it happens gradually over a long time frame.... the Soviet Union had to reach the point, people had to be imprisoned for cannibalism, because they were eating each other suffering from starvation.
Because at some point, you run out of other people's money.
This is a public hospital in Greece. These people are the some of the staff who have no jobs. Socialism works great. I'm sure just last year, Greek people were walking in these doors thinking "What a relief it was, and wish many other can experience not having to be scared of what the bill is going to be. It's a great feeling, let me tell you."
I wonder what they are thinking now.... Now that they can't even pay to get service.....
But hey... we were talking about Australia, right? And Australia doesn't have any problems at all! There system works great, and is fully funded, and still free........ right.....?
Australian hospital waiting times worsen under health reform - World Socialist Web Site
An official progress report on the Australian government’s health and hospital reform plan has revealed lengthening public hospital waiting lists, continuing failures in emergency departments to treat critically-ill patients within medically safe times and widespread delays for patients seeking access to general practitioners (GPs) and specialists.
Or not....... Australia's system is also running out of money too. As a result, longer wait times, delays in seeing doctors. "waiting lists" that go on for months. Emergency rooms failing to get to critically ill patients.
What does this sound like? It sounds exactly like the VA system here in the US, which is socialized and free too.
Let me explain to you why this is. It's actually very fundamental to the system. It doesn't matter who you elect into government. If you've read "The Road to Serfdom" by Friedrich Hayek, you'll know that his entire point was that inherently, the worst people are elected to high office.
But even if you elect good people, the system itself inherently fails.
Lets take that MRI you mentioned. In a capitalist free-market system, customers pay for the MRI services they use. As a result, as more people use the MRI service, the provider of that service has more money to hire people to provide the service. They have more money to maintain the MRI, and build up capital (from profits) purchase more MRI machines, to expand the MRI service for more people.
In a socialist system, all of that is completely eliminated. As more people show up for MRIs, there simply isn't enough money to provide more MRIs for more people. So you have to have waiting lists. There isn't any profit, and thus there is no capital buy additional MRI machines. Nor is there any additional revenue from paying patients, to pay people to run the MRI machines if you had them.
That's how you end up with crazy stories out of Canada.
For example, Hospitals in Canada could only do a set number of CT scans per day. The result was waiting lists for human patients, that were several years long. But I mention human patients, because the hospital allowed the CT scanner to be used for pets after hours, on a walk in basis. How could they afford to do that, when they couldn't afford to provide more humans with CT scans? Well of course because the pet owners were paying for it.
When the patients are paying for service, you can provide that service, and hire people to run that service.
Even to this day, the average wait time in Canada for an MRI is 18 Months. In 1999, a Canadian patient fed up with the socialist 'free' health care, signed up for MRI service at a Veterinarian center. Cost of MRI? $300. Wait time? 24 hours.
At the time it was illegal to pay for health care. Today, there are private pay-for-service "Capitalist" MRI clinics throughout Canada. Wait time for a private 'pay-for-service' clinic..... 48 hours. Tops. Or you can wait years for an MRI "free".
So my point to you is this.....
Yeah, you might find some socialist health care system, or any socialized system of anything, food, electricity, banking, mail, whatever.... that 'at the moment' is doing great, and has wonderful service.
And it might truly be good.
But eventually, as Thatcher pointed out, you run out of other people's money, and the system declines into ruin. Sooner or later. The soviet union lasted 70 years. But it, like all socialism, failed.
