LONDON, Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Britain's new president of the Royal College of Surgeons says free healthcare paid by taxes is unsustainable.
Britain's tax-funded National Health Service should be scrapped and paid for via a social insurance system, similar to the system used in France and Germany, according to Dr. Bernie Ribeiro. Patients would pay a proportion of the cost of their treatment and take out insurance to cover that cost, Ribeiro told the Daily Telegraph in an interview.
"We're not a poor country, the working population is reasonably well paid, we could afford for our workers to make an identifiable contribution towards health care -- not one hidden in national insurance and taxation," he said. "I think the public would be prepared to pay, it's a question of how you structure it. We seriously need to look at this again."
