#8 I can't see the situation with the NHS improving in the near future; the NHS is seen as something untouchable by all major parties (even the conservatives), meaning that the reforms needed won't take place.
This is very annoying, because recent opinion polls have shown that the population is generally willling to stop treating the NHS as some sacred cow, but the politicians are too frightened to do anything about it - none of them wants to be known as the guy who 'killed' the NHS (as though it were some ludicrous binary decision).
Huge strides could be made by simply allowing internal markets, but again the political will is not there to create a meaningful one (the conservatives were in the process of making one, labour came in and killed it off in one of their first decisions, and then found that they needed to recreate it). See the Adam Smith Institute's idea for more details.
The really annoying thing is that there's evidence of how a market could work extremely well on every high street ine the UK - opticians. When I was younger, you could always tell NHS spectacles - loads of jokes were made about them, but now it's exceedingly rare to see anyone wearing them, why? because you can go to SpecSavers, Vision Express, Boots, the Eye Clinic (and many more) and get the very best designer frames or invisible frames if you want, or maybe two-for-one deals is what you're after, varifocals, bifocals, all manner of contact lenses and several different forms of laser correction surgery are all available - and you can choose how much you want to pay, from hardly anything (reading glasses are available for less than a tenner) through to hundreds of pounds - your choice.
Why people can't see this going on and extrapolate it to the NHS is a constant mystery to me...
The market works, it's not perfect, but in virtually all areas it's more efficient and sensible to have a market. Check out this great article by Charlie Munger (the bit about 'Glock Air' should resonate with a lot of people on the 'burg!!), I've clipped the last bit - a quote by Ludwig von Mises;
"The market process is a daily repeated plebiscite, and it ejects inevitably from the ranks of profitable people those who do not employ their property according to the orders given by the public."
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