Rationing in the United Kingdom Rationing in the United Kingdom Rationing was introduced temporarily by the British government several times during the 20th century, during and immediately after a war. At the start of the Second World War in 1939, the United Kingdom was importing 20,000,000 long tons of food per year, including about 70% of its cheese and sugar, nearly 80% of fruits and about 70% of cereals and fats. The UK also imported more than half of its meat, and relied on imported feed to support its domestic meat production. The civilian population of the country was about 50 million. It was one
Healthcare rationing in the United States the elderly: an expanded federal bureaucracy, the pending insolvency of Medicare within a decade, and the fact that 25% of Medicare costs are incurred in the final year of life. Princeton Professor Uwe Reinhardt wrote that both public and private healthcare programs can ration and rebutted the concept that governments alone impose rationing: "Many critics of the current health reform efforts would have us believe that only governments ration things... On the other hand, these same people believe that when, for similar reasons, a private health insurer refuses to pay for a particular procedure or has a price-tiered formulary for