Stephen Hawking is a world-renowned physicist. The NHS would be foolish to let him die, but if he were a normal man with Lou Geirig's disease, I don't think his outlook would have been so sunny.

The problem with government provided healthcare is that it forever changes the relationship between the state and citizen. If you rely on the government for life and death matters, such as healthcare, you become beholden to your own government. And their way to decrease costs = rationing & blocking access to care. Since it's run by the government, there's no accountability. In Britain, they have a formula to decide whether you get healthcare. The procedure is divided by the years that you benefit, and if you don't meet that threshhold, you don't get the procedure. This will mean that many people with very serious health conditions will not get care. The seniors in America have picked up on this, and many of them are showing their great displeasure at the town hall meetings.

The real problem behind all of this is that our government in the U.S. and many other places think they know better than everyone else. Hillary Clinton has actually said that our money is not our own, it belongs to the government, and we are allowed a portion to live from. This kind of mentality demonstrates that our government can't be trusted to look out for our best interests.