On the Track of a Sacred Cow

Thatcherite huntsmen have ostensibly caught up with the biggest and most sacred of all the sacred cows in Britain’s welfare state. Their proposals for the reform of the National Health Service have finally been published amid a great fanfare of headlines.

Something had to be done. The relentless pressure of demand for medical services at nil cost to the user, exacerbated by increasingly expensive new techniques and an aging population, has meant long waiting-lists, resentful staff (including politicized unions), and continuous political uproar.