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British citizens have free access to a National Health Service. Most of us were born in a NHS hospital. Most of us have been back. Many of our children were and will be delivered, free of charge, by professionals to whom we owe only the utmost respect. They have already been paid with our taxes.

As a nation, we’ve spent thousands of hours in the unsleeping Accident and Emergency Wards. We’ve had heart surgeries and cancer treatments. There are GPs. There are community nurses. York is full of public hospitals, clinics, surgeries and walk in centres.

But the system is always changing. Funding must be found for equipment. Doctors and nurses, administrators, cleaners and maintenance staff all move through its veins and new patients are always lined outside. Everything has a price.

On the one hand, this is about our health. On the other, it is all about money. When it comes to public healthcare, there are few more contentious tasks than redrawing the existing lines between the “patient” and the “customer”.

The debate has resurfaced under our present coalition government. Last October, Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, arrived at a Conservative Party fundraiser in York. Outside, a crowd gathered to condemn Tory plans to reform the NHS through the Health Bill.

The Health Bill is an attempt to tackle the national deficit, aiming to bring about what Health Minister, Earl Howe, describes as a “fundamental shift in the balance of power”, moving much of the regulatory process from politicians to medical staff by removing regulatory middlemen and axing certain treatments.

Lansley’s policies could allow the system to function without several expensive tiers of bureaucracy. But we all know that nothing is free. Even our healthcare is paid for by tax money. We are left to confront the question: at what cost do we save money?

Lines have been drawn. The government argues that cuts within the NHS present a solvent alternative to the current system, which is a great cost to the Treasury. The savings made would help to decrease the deficit and Lord Darzi claims that the NHS would benefit from the “right competition for the right reasons”.

Labour argues that the Bill is ill conceived and threatens the NHS with a future of increasingly dramatic privatisations. Opposition Health Minister, Baroness Thornton, stated that “people did not expect, did not vote for and do not want these changes” while senior Lib Deb Peer, Baroness Williams, commented on the “frightening” potential of mixing medicine with profit.

Demonstrators fear that the NHS will begin to sell its services. They predict that, without proper regulation, many within the NHS will pursue the profits of a lucrative trade in healthcare, as we see in the private sector. York Stop The Cuts campaigner, Graham Martin, comments: “Andrew Lansley represents one of the most dangerous policies of this Government in allowing private profit to gain a foothold in the NHS at a local level.”

This is a national battlefield. Especially since opposition to the Health Bill was overturned in the House of Lords in 2011. But let us consider the effects of privatisation on a local level.

York was thrown into the spotlight last year when it became the perfect example. One commentator described it as “the thin end of the wedge”.

The arrival in York of the Health Secretary was ill timed: the fundraiser followed the controversial privatisation of previously free healthcare services in Haxby.

Haxby and Wigginton Health Centre (NHS) had previously offered free treatments for cysts, ingrown toenails, skin tag removals and common viral warts. They began to email patients who had requested these treatments, offering the services of a private practice in which the centre held shares – HGB Ltd – and explained that the treatments now came at a price of between £140.00 and £160.00. They breached doctor-patient confidentiality agreements in their marketing strategy and they used confidential information to gain an advantage. Private data became market research. Protestors arrived at the practice and events were brought into the public eye.

In this example, where free treatments were deemed too costly and were subsequently removed, services became a matter of small town business, not altruistic healthcare. The NHS is not going private. But in the absence of free treatment, we will have to turn to the private sector.

We have seen the difference between the patient and the potential customer here in York. For now, for some patients, it is a difference of about £150.00. Perhaps this is a glimpse of life in 2012. The future of the NHS.