LONDON -- Some high-powered Japanese experts recently were in London looking at British systems of welfare and social support, and at health and medical provisions in particular.
If they are wise, they will learn but not copy. The British system is based on a colossal and unified National Health Service, which was one of the proudest creations of the then-socialist government after World War II.
With nearly a million employees, it was once described as the world's biggest organizer of manpower following the Red Army and the Indian railway service. But in today's terms it is a dinosaur.