""While I agree about giving all the treatment people *need*, the thread referred to is talking about what people *want*. In particular, they want branded drugs rather than generic. The cost implications of that are huge, and I can't help noticing the petition doesn't include the phrase "and we are willing for our taxes to be increased to cover the costs".""

DMcG, I would take issue with your statement that "what people want is branded, not generic, drugs".

In my experience, what people want is precisely the opposite. Only those too uneducated, or brainwashed by TV, to know the difference are demanding to pay four times as much for branded goods, as they can with so called "generics".

Are you one of those who buys 16 Aspro tablets, when he can buy Aspirin for a quarter the cost? Ditto, Nurofen four times more than Ibuprofen. Where topping up comes into the picture is with new drugs where, thanks to the monumental greed of the pharmaceutical companies, there is NO generic option, and the prices charged are extortionate.

NHS funds are limited, choices have to be made, and unfortunately it is difficult to justify spending thousands of pounds to, for example, give an already terminal patient an extra few months.

In an ideal world one could say yes to everyone. In reality, where I think WE are all living, one can't.

In response to your final comment, my dear fellow, we have been paying steadily higher tax to keep our NHS going since the 1940s, and we are managing quite nicely, secure in the knowledge that sudden illness, in the UK at least, is not a synonym for bankruptcy.

Don T.