NHS query

[Amy Z]

Catherine wrote on the main list:

>Finally, Harry's glasses.  They look new - not beaten up and mended 
>with sellotape.  I also always thought that they would look like 
>National Health glasses, as I couldn't see the Dursleys paying for 
>them.

I heartily agree that they look too new.  My inner 
child-with-perenially-broken-glasses is whimpering at the loss of her 
role model.

I have an NHS question.  In the US, it's only when parents can't 
afford it that Aid for Dependent Children (or whatever there is now, 
if anything ::breathes deeply, steers rapidly away from politics::) 
will pay.  If a child's parents refused to pay for glasses, well, that 
might be a matter for Child Protective Services (in time), or 
authorities might find some other way to insist that they pay, but I 
don't think any kind of social program would step in and do it for 
free.  A middle-class couple refusing to get needed glasses for their 
ward would be regarded as trying to chisel free glasses out of the 
system, rightly enough; they'd have to pay for them or risk being 
charged with neglect.  Wouldn't the Dursleys have grudgingly bought 
him the cheapest pair in the shop (and not, of course, replaced them 
as long as sellotape would do)?

Amy