The radical experiment: transforming Britain's national health system to interlocking markets

Abstract

The reforms of Britain's National Health Service (NHS) are the most sweeping attempt in the world to transform a social system of administered services into a system of buyers and sellers. At issue are basic questions about the nature of human behavior and the nature of inefficiency. This article outlines the NHS and its problems, shows how narrow and misleading the market-based diagnosis was of those problems, explains the reforms, and assesses their likely impact.