THE NHS IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT DECENT HEALTH CARE:

An unhealthy reverence: In its lack of foundation and its grip on the moral consensus, our faith in the NHS is like a faith in God (Zoe Williams, February 7, 2007, The Guardian)

American medical advertising alerts you to many differences between our nations. I think more of them have herpes, for instance, than we do. Furthermore, I think if herpes-soother manufacturers were to advertise here, they wouldn't use neat, mid-40s New England women on their way to a clambake to illustrate the discomfort of genital itching, they'd use grubby teenagers. Americans are happier talking about their enlarged prostate. British advertisers peddling a nutritional supplement for children "when you're worried they aren't getting the vitamins they need from meals" would not exclusively illustrate this conundrum with black families.

Whenever I'm in America and I hear that runaway garble, "discuss this with your doctor, may cause dizziness, retching, despair, etc" I am reminded of how profoundly different are our attitudes to healthcare professionals, not to mention their attitudes to us. Can you imagine what would happen if you marched into a GP, demanding a drug you'd seen on the telly? They'd be livid. They'd put a tyre round your neck and set fire to it, shouting: "medicate that, pipsqueak!"

For the obvious reason that we don't pay for it, the health system seems to us to be largely outside commerce, totally uncoupled from the rules of the market that govern every other decision of our lives. It seems perfectly reasonable to delay having children pending some financial security, and perfectly unreasonable to delay an operation for said child on the same grounds.