Britain’s National Health Service, Praised by Obama’s Medicare Chief, To Undergo Cost-Cutting Overhaul

(CNSNews.com) – Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), which rations basic health care services to control costs, will undergo major budget cuts and restructuring ostensibly to make the government-run system less bureaucratic and more decentralized, according to detailed news reports over the weekend from the United Kingdom.

Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recently given a recess-appointment by President Barack Obama to run the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in America, has praised Britain’s National Health Service, saying he loves the single-payer system.

In a July 2008 speech commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the NHS at Britain’s Wembley Stadium, Berwick said, “Cynics beware, I am a romantic about the National Health Service; I love it. All I need to do to rediscover the romance is to look at health care in my own country. The National Health Service is one of the truly astounding human endeavors of modern times.”

Berwick also said, “Do not trust market forces to give you the system you need. … I cannot believe that the individual health care consumer can enforce through choice the proper configurations of a system as massive and complex as health care. That is for leaders to do.”