Word: bevans
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...cost of a national health service had originally been estimated at ?100 million annually, then revised upwards an additional ?61 million by the time the plan went into effect last July. Now, eight months later, Health Minister Aneurin ("Nye") Bevan announced that the Health Service would need ?58,455,000 more than its budget had planned. Thundered Winston Churchill: "Grossest carelessness . . . wild miscalculations...
...Tories could cite some whopping examples. Bevan's budget had set aside ?2 million for spectacles, but Britons-many of whom previously fitted their own specs at Woolworth's-had run up the cost by a cool ?11 million over that. Bevan had been 550% off in his estimate. About a fifth of Britain's population had sat its turn in the dentists' chairs; the bill was ?12 million (250%) over Bevan's estimate...
...Tories thought twice before attacking what had proved to be one of Labor's most popular measures. In the House of Commons last week, Churchill declared that the vote of censure he had called for would be postponed. As he strolled out of the chamber, leaving Bevan lolling confidently on the government front bench, one Tory ruefully said: "The champ's quit. There'll be no bruising today...
Teeth In the Harbor. With the champ gone, the Tory seconds swarmed in on Bevan like an army of Lilliputians-but in vain. Why and how, they wanted to know, had Bevan come to be so inaccurate in his estimates. Protested one Tory: "If a business firm or a contractor made such a ghastly error, he would go bankrupt...
...Bevan was unabashed. The figures simply meant, he said, that more Britons needed medical care than anyone suspected. "Insofar as the figures show that suffering is being relieved," cried Bevan, "we should be proud!" Though initially reluctant, 90% of Britain's dentists and 86% of her physicians had now joined the plan. "Had they not come in," Bevan declared triumphantly, "I should not have had a deficit, but a surplus. I should have been praised by the Opposition for being a financial success-but I should have been a failure as a Minister of Health...