NHS patient equation.

The point is it’s a bit of a vocation but no one is press-ganged into medicine (well, a fair few doctors are but by their families as opposed to by the authorities).

The NHS in particular has become a political football not because of the universal healthcare model - other countries manage that just as well - but because history says it was a great idea to offer healthcare to everyone funded by a specific tax and that should never be altered. However like the US 2nd Amendment this ideal has not kept apace with technical (medical) and societal advances. None of the US founding fathers assumed people would own automatic weapons “for leisure purposes” in the same way Bevan never assumed people would want to have a sex change, let alone have it funded by other people.

The medical advances go way past the 2nd amendment ones, however. No one of Bevan’s generation thought people would want their sick kept alive with no useful quality of life so the model is not made to support this. Granted the spend per head in the UK falls behind other developed nations its still pretty high - meaning those that need help to return to a quality of life sometimes suffer due to the care that’s given to those with no chance of one (in the eyes of the man on the Clapham Omnibus).

There are huge moral arguments around healthcare so I won’t delve into that but suffice to say because of those arguments it’s probably best if medics at all levels only see you as some meat and bones to be worked on. Or not, if an acceptable existence is unviable. Perhaps some NHS version of the ULEZ scrappage scheme is required.