Free Education and Health Care

There is a discussion going on on the Casa Ben Linder mailing list about free access to education and health care. Generally, the input seems to be that, yes, it really is free (and in fact the Ministry of Education laid off 900 cashiers) but services are "less than wonderful".

This is not necessarily new. That is, schools have shortages, health clinics may not have needed medicines and such but it is worthy of discussion. That is, what are you seeing in your area? Are schools really free? Can students attend without uniforms? And, possibly most important, what can we do to help?