In the United States, the demand for Medicare for All is growing. It feels like ancient history, but only three years ago the Democratic Party’s presidential front-runner promised that a single-payer health insurance system will “never, ever come to pass.”

Now, thanks in large part to the tireless insistence of two-time democratic socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, most of the major contenders for the party’s presidential nomination are forced at the very least to rhetorically concede that Medicare for All is the goal — though all but Sanders are finding ways to kick the can down the road.

In Britain, meanwhile, the National Health Service (NHS) is widely regarded as the country’s finest political achievement, its jewel in the crown. A former Conservative Party chancellor once called it “the closest thing the English have to a religion,” while Conservative prime minister David Cameron once had to issue a groveling repudiation of one of his party’s MEPs, Daniel Hannan, after Hannan criticized it on Fox News while visiting the United States during the Obamacare debate.