For the Chancellor cast Prudence to the winds in 1999, pushing up expenditure on all fronts, but especially on the NHS, where the budget has increased by 7 per cent a year in real terms for the last four years.
But now the Chancellor is applying the brakes. Most experts predict the real increases in health spending will average only 3 per cent a year from 2008. They know that the Chancellor is more than one trillion pounds in the red.
The Brown binge achieved little and now threatens much. Standards of health care have improved nothing like as fast as the increase in spending.
Instead of channelling the extra money into patient care, Brown has frittered much away on higher pay and pensions for staff.
This is why 29 accident and emergency units across the country face closure.
And this is why here in Shropshire, our community hospitals are already feeling the pinch.
Only last week, a tribute was paid to staff on the mental health ward in Ludlow hospital before it closes this month. The debt-ridden Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust is being forced to axe nearly 300 posts to help balance its books.
No doubt Mr Brown will try to claim that he is pouring more money into health care. But no amount of spin and bluster can disguise the fact that our hospitals are in deep trouble and face even tougher times ahead.
