Perks and perceived benefits

What are the perceived benefits of the NHS?

UK residents benefit from access to the NHS (National Health Service), through which all received universal health care “for free”. In short, people don’t pay for medical care (although clearly it is funded by taxation). However, perhaps the “perceived benefit” of that is both unclear to most people in the UK, as well as of varying perceived value (depending on, for example, how often we need to take advantage of this).

This lack of clear and aligned perceived benefits amongst the actual beneficiaries of the system can and do cause problems at multiple levels, including in terms of allocating budgets and resources to best be of service. Put another way, if the value of something does not at least match the cost of providing it, then that is a system that will ultimately fail, so if someone doesn’t recognise the financial cost of something so as to equate to the value of it, again, failure is a risk.

So, a few years ago, a wise friend of mine came up with an idea. Quite simply, it was that every time anyone saw a doctor, visited a hospital or in any way used the NHS, they would receive a bill for the services they received, itemised and fully costed out. No, they would not have to pay anything, they would simply receive a bill, which would then have a final line item that would credit their invoice to…