When an Anglican clergyman of Baghdad was told by an alleged al-Qaeda leader 'those who cure you will kill you' it didn't necessarily mean in itself that the attempted bombings (of which one was close to my place of work) were directed by 'al-Qaeda'. What is just as likely is that many of those predisposed to such plans have figured the same thing out - it was really easy to get into Britain if you are a doctor. The ballooning healthcare system is necessitating a massive inflow of medical staff from overseas (we are doing a pretty good job of robbing Africa of vital nursing staff). Britain simply does not produce enough doctors and nurses to cope with its own demand for health professionals.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Americans should ‘fear’ socialized medicine (I much prefer the NHS to the current US mess) but that it illustrates two entirely separate but interesting points: a) the lack of capacity of even a highly developed economy to provide this service to its population without getting outside help (not forgetting the fact that those of us living abroad get a massive drug price subsidy from the profits pharmaceuticals make in the US) and b) it is going to be very, very difficult to close to terrorists all means of getting into a country. For example, my experience of clearing in and out of customs in ports along Southern Spain leads me to think it would not be too challenging for someone to sneak into the country successfully by boat (especially since customs closes at 5…). Or to take advantage of the lack of co-operation between Spanish and Gibraltarian authorities and the international boundaries the respective law enforcement agencies have to respect in the bay.

Britian is not the only place that depends on foreign doctors. Most of the small towns in sparsely populated areas of the United States are lucky to have a doctor, and that doctor is almost always from a third world country. Nationalized healthcare is certainly not the problem here.

I am not saying that it is just a nationalized healthcare system that causes a need for foreign doctors (and that this is also not a good enough argument against it). However, in Britain some 40% of our medics were trained abroad. I am sure that the same is not true for the US.

I stress again that this is not in itself a nearly sufficient reason against national healthcare system. What it does demonstrate is a factor that is frequently ignored in the US healthcare debate, which is the capacity of a healthcare system to cope with the massively larger demand for healthcare if it is "free".

The fact that Britain relies on foreign workers in the NHS is a sign that we can't afford to pay nurses and doctors enough to incentivize largely better-off British citizens to enter the profession.

Actually, the United States changed immigration rules to import cheaper nurses. We cannot afford to let the "market" set the rate for nurses, so we encourage nurses from other nations to settle here.

A 2006 report (link: <link> says the following:

Currently 22 percent of physicians and 12 percent of nurses in the United States are foreign born, but these figures are likely to rise. The paradox is that thousands of qualified medical and nursing school applicants are turned away each year in this country.

And it appears that we are poaching your medical people:

U.S. shortages directly affect the health workforce shortages in both rich and poor countries around the world. Countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia are losing nurses to the United States, and are deeply concerned that active recruitment by U.S. hospitals will further exacerbate their shortages.

Freemarket or nationalized, health care is in crisis. And that crisis makes us all vulnerable.

I wouldn't exactly call US healthcare 'free-market', but I wouldn't have thought the proportions were so high - however I wonder what the differences in numbers are between 'foreign-born' and 'foreign-trained' nurses and doctors, as I think the difference is quite significant.