Like The U.S., Europe Wrestles With Health Care, NPR Shots

by Corey Flintoff

The U.S. has been absorbed by the Supreme Court case this week on the future of health care. But Americans are not alone.
Several European nations, where universal health care has been the norm for decades, have been waging their own intense debates as they also deal with aging populations and rising costs.
Britain passed a new health care measure earlier this month, after more than a year of rancorous debate. Can the European experience cast some light on the American debate over health care?
"There are some common problems," says British analyst Chris Ham, "but we're coming to this debate from very different starting points. In the States, it's about how to extend coverage to more people, whereas [in Britain], it's about how to get more bang for the buck out of our current system."
  Ham is the chief executive of The King's Fund, an independent health policy think tank in London.

The British Debate
Britain's debate is still going on, with critics charging that the Conservative-led government is trying to privatize the more than 60-year-old system in an effort to cut the nation's budget deficit.
The government says the reforms will trim a bloated health care bureaucracy and give doctors more control over health care management.

for full article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/28/149564583/like-the-u-s-europe-wrestles-with-health-care