(92%) The United Kingdom and Ireland, a group of European countries connected by a common border, share at least one other characteristic, that is, they both have systems universal healthcare. Most would expect the two countries' healthcare systems to work similarly, due to their close proximity and the fact that they are both universal, but in reality the opposite is true. The Irish healthcare system and structure is very different to the UK National Health Service (Gold, 2011). Consisting of four constituent countries, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom (UK) is a sovereign country that is commonly referred to as Great Britain (or Great Britain) (Johnson & Stoskopf, 2010, p. 85). Located in the northwestern corner of Europe, the United Kingdom has experienced one of the most prosperous periods of sustained growth in all of Europe, showing a relatively steady increase in entrepreneurial maturity and development for over 150 years (Johnson & Stoskopf, 2010, p. 87). This is a reversal of the trend observed in the first half of the 20th century, when according to the CIA World Fact Book, the role of the United Kingdom as a world power was seriously weakened in the period between two world wars, followed by Ireland's withdrawal from 'Union. The second half of the century saw the slow dismantling of the British Empire and the reconstruction of the United Kingdom into a modern and prosperous European nation (Johnson & Stoskopf, 2010, p. 85). A country that has taken a step forward in tradition and institutionalism, Great Britain is one of them. of the only countries that do not have a common set of governing documents, i.e. the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, the Constitution. Instead the governmental roots can be traced back to the Magna Carta of 1215 which… halfway through the document… the clinical effectiveness of pharmaceutical products and the process of calculating cost-effectiveness should not prove too difficult. The problem lies in the fact that the Food and Drug Administration does not have the power to prevent a drug from being placed on the market if it is ineffective in relation to the cost. Additional obstacles arise from opposition from consumers who say the purchasing decision should be a consumer choice. In the UK, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) uses a threshold of $50,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) for entry into the National Health System (NHS). If a drug does not meet this threshold it is denied. The value of $50,000 is substantially lower than recent estimates in the United States that place the value of a year of life near $175,000 (Vernon, Goldberg, Dash, Muralimohan, 2007).