heart of the NHS was always: help for absolutely everyone, no-one turned away for any reason whatever; and no goddamned fancy treatment for stiffs too big for their boots. Brits - the English variety, anyway, though somewhat less amongst the traditionally egalitarian Cymry - still suffer from a long tradition of too much deferential cringing to 'authority'.
VEP, btw, stands for 'very expensive person'. A more accurate rendering of the self-uppity stiffs.