The U.K.’s Government-Run Healthcare Service Is in Crisis

For more than a decade, the British government has run the National Health Service, the world’s largest government-run healthcare system, on a tight budget. The NHS boasts one of the leanest healthcare systems in the developed world, spending less per capita per capita than its major European neighbors—and far less than the United States.

Now the state-funded service is collapsing. People who have had a heart attack or stroke have, on average, more than an hour and a half to wait for an ambulance. The hospitals are so full that they are turning away patients. A record 7.1 million people in the UK—more than one in 10—are stuck on a waiting list for non-urgent hospital treatment such as a hip replacement. The NHS on Monday faced the biggest strike in its history, with thousands of healthcare workers and nurses on pay.