[NetBehaviour] The Problem of Health Care

[Edward Picot]

Michael -

I take your point about Paul and Pauline just seeming to stand there 
blinking (and dying) until somebody else comes along and invents free 
healthcare for them. And the fact that the lightbulb representing the 
idea of free healthcare looks a bit similar in shape to the Dept of 
Health boffin's head at the end of the video, and the free healthcare 
idea arrives with a similar "ping!" effect as the current healthcare 
reforms, does seem to suggest that free health care is another 
boffin-originated notion, although a more benign one.

On the other hand I don't think Paul and Pauline are entirely 
submissive. They do tell Peter the Premiere to piss off when he suggests 
that they should pay higher taxes to fund the NHS. They prefer to have 
cash in their pockets to spend on consumer goods. I'm not sure Peter the 
Premiere was ever really going to go for a high-tax, less-consumeristic 
society, as he's so obviously wedded to the model of 
constantly-expanding economic growth; but Paul and Pauline weren't 
prepared to sacrifice any of their spending power in any case.

- Edward