Happy birthday, NHS

The National Health Service is 65 years old today, though hopefully not ready to retire. How fitting that it should be a Cancerian institution, with Sun closely square Neptune. Benevolent Jupiter in Sagittarius ruling the nominal Pisces ascendant (chart set for 0hrs) also fits the bill. The NHS is part of the national safety net, and we see it as being here to rescue us. 

2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony

The NHS Sun at 12 Cancer is exactly opposite the UK 1801 Sun, and conjunct its Moon, further stressing the maternal tie. The UK's emotional attachment to the NHS borders on mystical reverence, or some would say, an unattainable ideal. The strong Jupiterian influence also explains its image as an over-inflated bureaucracy - 1.3 million staff make the NHS the world's fifth highest employer*.  

12 Cancer remains in the eye of the Uranus-Pluto storm until September 2015, when Pluto makes its last opposition. Clearly tough times, where the NHS's fortunes are bound up with those of the country as a whole. Pluto oppositions invariably mean surgery - cuts, both material and emotional. Challenging the NHS is acutely politically sensitive for any government, and attempts to make people more responsible for their own health-care are always met with howls of protest. 

Jupiter in Cancer until mid-2014 may be a saving grace for the Service, particularly with supportive aspects from Saturn (and to some degree Neptune in Pisces). We all need saving sometimes and the NHS ensures nobody in the UK gets bankrupted by a hospital bill. Universal health insurance is the hallmark of a civilized society, yet a should a society growing healthier not also need fewer hospitals?  

National Health Service, 5th July 1948, London, UK

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Behind Walmart, McDonald's, The Chinese People's Liberation Army, and the US Department of Defense, in case you wondered.