What can you tell us Yanks about Healthcare in the UK

Not sure how relevant this is as it is comparing my experience of privatevs public service in England. I broke my leg pretty badly a few years ago and metal got screwed to my leg in thanks to the NHS then taken out a year later courtesy of Bupa. The level of care was almost the same in both (apart from a monumental fuck up on pain control on one instance by the NHS), the people treating me were the same (some working for both the NHS and Bupa), the only big difference between the two services was the waiting around. When being treated by the NHS there was a lot of waiting around and uncertainty when I would be seen by doctors, surgeons etc. Compared to private when if they said they'd be there at 1pm then they would be there bang on 1pm.

But that is private medicine in the UK - they're very good at hand-holding, bedside manner, etc, and they're able to do the simple stuff, but anything reasonably complicated is handed back to be done by the NHS anyway.

The other big issue with the American system, that hasn't been touched on, is the effect it has had on medical research. Speaking as a former employee, the reason that Big Pharma is what it is (venal, corrupt and not very interested in pointing its money in the direction of malaria, AIDS and so on, preferring "lifestyle" diseases) is because it makes its money in the American system, where it can market directly to consumers and charge huge fees to insurance companies. The medical research agenda for the entire world is set by a perverse system of economic incentives in the US, and academia is corrupted along the way. I don't want to derail the thread into a discussion of Big Pharma (well, secretly I do), but if the US went for socialised medicine it would be wonderful to watch their business model collapse a bit further.