Attributing Britain's post-war economic difficulties to the introduction of NHS is too simple. We need to examine some of the far deeper structural problems concerned with questions such as the level of industrial investment in order to explain her declining economic fortunes, and that would take an article in itself. Furthermore, countries such as Germany have comprehensive health insurance, and are by no means in a weak state economically.

The vast proportion of the British public has been satisfied with the NHS. Polls conducted earlier this year showed that 85 per cent agreed that it provided a good service. In 1948 doctors' waiting rooms overflowed with people who had not seen a doctor in years. In particular there were many uninsured patients who had accumulated debts which they could not pay off. Since then there has been a substantial rise in the overall standard of health. One example is the infant mortality rate, which was virtually halved during the first three years of the NHS.

The U.S. many spend far more than any other nation on health care, but in some respects its standard of health is surprisingly low. According to World Health Organization statistics, it ranks 15th among the developed nations for infant mortality and 17th in life expectancy for males. Yet the AMA claims that the present system provides "the best medical care in the world."

Kennedy's proposals present a serious attempt to answer some of these difficulties, partly be redistributing resources to provede a better service to all. His scheme is based largely on the existing Canadian system rather than the European models. Yet much of the underlying philosophy is similar. In practice the U.S. would have 30 years of European experience to learn from. On the basis of this they could probably make a national health insurance scheme work better and avoid some of the problems encountered by the NHS. It needs only sufficient political will for these measures to be introduced. Kennedy is confident that this is bound to come; if not in the next session of Congress, then in the next one. In the meantime, high costs and uneven services will continue. And the old man in the drugstore might not get his new glasses.

Suzanne Franks, a graduate of Oxford University, is studying at Harvard on a Kennedy Fellowship.

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