The politics of ideology vs. the reality of politics: the case of Britain's National Health Service in the 1980s.

In 1979 the British people elected a government that explicitly repudiated the basis of post-war political consensus; Americans did likewise in the following year. New policies, it was expected, would be shaped by a new ideology. Britain's National Health Service offers an opportunity to examine the nature of this relationship. Political, professional, and corporate ideologies about resource allocations are inevitably constrained by the prevailing public philosophy.