January 4, 2026

I stuffed their mouths with gold.

Aneurin Bevan, (1897-1960), British Labour politician. As Minister of Health, in the post-World War II Labour government, he introduced, in 1948, the National Health Service, the NHS—a publicly funded health care system based on need, not the ability to pay. Quoted in Brian Abel-Smith, The Hospitals 1800-1948, 1964, Jay p. 41

Can you guess the connection between what Bevan says here—I stuffed their mouths with gold—and his role in developing Britain’s National Health Service in 1948? Take as much time as you need.

All right, times up! Actually, Bevan was referring to the fact that to smooth the integration of general practitioners and medical specialists into Britain’s new health regime—or as its detractors called it: “socialized medicine”—he had to sweeten the financial proposition for those practitioners and specialists. That was the gold and the mouths into which it was stuffed. Lesson? In a capitalist democracy, no government program ever succeeds without ensuring a benefit to some private sector interest or other. The only trick is to decide how much of a benefit is warranted—and affordable.